By Aneri Upadhyay
Staff Writer
The end of August is usually associated with summer ending and school beginning. This year, however, it was also marked with a blue supermoon in the sky.
According to NASA, a supermoon is when a full moon passes through the closest point to Earth in its orbit. This causes the moon to look bigger and shine brighter than usual. Blue moons occur when there are two full moons within one month, which is incredibly rare. The next blue supermoon will be seen in 2037.
Moon phases are the same from anywhere in the world, so everyone could see the blue supermoon in action Wednesday night, as reported by the New York Times.
Not only did the moon appear 14 percent bigger because of the supermoon, but Saturn was also visible near the moon as it moved closer to Earth, according to PBS.
As stated in NPR, the moon was 222,043 miles away from Earth. Dave Teske, the lunar topographic studies coordinator for the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, commented on how easy it is to look outside and see the beauty of the moon.
“Get out there and observe it. Just enjoy the beautiful view of the moon," he said, according to NPR. "Really think about what you're seeing out there."
The blue supermoon was not the only lunar achievement happening this month. Just recently, India became the first country to land a spacecraft, Chandrayaan-3, near the moon’s south pole. As mentioned by NPR, this could open the door to holding frozen water reservations in the south pole for future missions.
India has now been the fourth country to land on the moon, preceded by the United States, China and the Soviet Union.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared his pride for India as he watched the landing, stating that “India is now on the moon. India has reached the south pole of the moon - no other country has achieved that. We are witnessing history.”
According to Reuters, India also launched a rocket to study the sun on Saturday after the successful moon landing.
That launch was watched by more than 860,000 people on a livestream from the Indian Space Research Organisation. Thousands of people watched it in person near the site.
The next few months will be crucial in space exploration as the discoveries made by the Chandrayaan-3 and rocket expand scientists’ understanding of the moon and sun.
