2025 has been blessed with three consecutive supermoons in the autumn skies, with the final one of the trio visible tonight over the United States.
It will crest the horizon at just after 5:00 pm, which depending on your latitude in the eastern United States may already be twilight, and therefore give a great chance to see it shining near the horizon where it appears largest.
A supermoon is a colloquial name for when our satellite reaches perigee, or the point of its elliptical orbit around the Earth when it’s the closest to us. This is the opposite of apogee, when the Moon reaches its farthest point.
When the Moon is full at perigee, it’s called a supermoon, and when full at apogee, it’s called a “micromoon.”
A supermoon appears 8% larger than a normal full moon, and 14% larger than a micromoon.
The cool thing is that it can appear even bigger the closer it is to the horizon, a phenomenon known as the Moon illusion.
“Being near perigee and full, this Moon can also produce slightly higher tides, known as perigean spring tides or king tides, especially along coastlines,” writes Old Farmer’s Almanac, which also detailed while the December full moon is called the “Cold Moon.”
Although it doesn’t take much detailing—it’s a cold time of the year. Cold Moon was what the Mohawk nation called it, while the Mohican referred to it as the Long Knight Moon, due to its proximity to the Winter Solstice. Other tribes associated it with nature phenomena, like frost crystals cracking tree bark, or when deer shed their antlers.
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