However, this isn’t the closest full moon of 2016.
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A rare lunar phenomenon will be visible in the night sky on Friday night (September 16) as a lunar eclipse is combined with a harvest moon. A harvest moon is the full moon that appears nearest to the Autumnal Equinox.
Why does the Harvest Moon often look orange?
A group of scientists from Washington University in St. Louis in the United States recently published a paper suggesting that the birth of the moon may have vaporised most of earth.
While this penumbral lunar eclipse won’t be as striking as a full umbra eclipse, which completely darkens the moon as the Earth’s shadow passes across it, it will still provide some shading.
When tonight’s full moon moves into the Earth’s outer shadow, it will cause a penumbral lunar eclipse – one of three types of lunar eclipse.
This year’s harvest moon won’t be a supermoon like last year – when a moon is closest to Earth, but another eclipse will put on a show in the night sky. Although the eclipse will be visible to the naked eye (though not in North and South America), it can be viewed through binoculars or a telescope. The point of maximum eclipse will take place at 18:54:20 Universal Time (UTC), or 2:54 a.m. EDT (1854 GMT).
For the second year in succession, this month’s full moon is eclipsed.
This year’s Harvest Moon will occur at 3:05 p.m. EDT on September 16; however, as is typically the case, the moon will appear full for a few days before and after that day. I wouldn’t write off seeing the Harvest Moon in Lansing, Jackson, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. As such, the difference for the time of moonrise exceeds the average of 50 minutes per night. Friday, according to Space.com.
But we may very well find out what happened thanks to a new study published in the journal Nature, which suggests the moon was formed due to a massive impact with the Earth and another huge object, in what may be deemed a three-way collision. Tonight, you could watch the bright full moon rise at sunset over the East Bay.
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Another interesting tidbit is that this full moon’s name is attributed to Native Americans because it marked the time when corn was supposed to be harvested. In this video, NASA explains the origins of the Harvest Moon.
