NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope First Images - Stellar Death

other

handout

COLOMBIA-ASTRONOMY-MOON-ECLIPSE

Contributor

Getty

HONS

Milky Way Black Hole

HOGP

APTOPIX Antarctica Solar Eclipse

Colorado night sky

FTWP

The Washington Post

staff

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Eighth-inning decision burns the Nats in a 4-2 loss to the Red Sox

The Wizards will pick second in the NBA draft. Here’s whom they could take.

Mistakes pile up, leaving the Nationals with a 3-2 loss at Fenway Park

Pete Buttigieg’s view from the middle seat

The case for eating at Italian gas stations

5 big travel lessons from an accomplished conservationist

No, Apple, people do not want tech to crush everything in its path 

The urgent air defense lessons of April 16 

Are smartphones destroying childhood? It’s complicated.

2024 elections latest updates: Biden seeks to put focus on health care, infrastructure

Democratic group starts attacking Trump with abortion rights testimonials 

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

RFK Jr.’s ‘history lesson’ on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine flunks the fact test

The Trump-Biden battle over the 2017 tax cut

Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok? Take our quiz.

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

Social Security has to be fixed. But you still need your own savings.

Middle East conflict live updates: Israeli forces advance in Rafah, Health Ministry says Gaza hospital system will collapse in hours

Why Spain will recognize a Palestinian state

Far-right German party may threaten democracy, can be spied on, court rules

Retired cop meets abandoned baby he helped 23 years ago: ‘What are the odds?’

I used to dismiss my mom’s advice. Then I found a note she wrote before she died.  

Photos of his mom at lunch are a balm people didn’t know they needed

Ask Amy: Dad hurt by daughter publicly reconnecting with her biological family

Miss Manners: Should I accept offered seat swaps when I’m flying for free?

Carolyn Hax: What’s the real cost of going halfsies on a modest engagement ring?

U.S.-China talks on AI risks set to begin in Geneva

Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answers

Fooled by AI? These firms sell deepfake detection that’s ‘REAL 100%.’ 

Trump insults N.Y. case prosecutor at Jersey Shore rally

Blinken: U.S. ‘would not support’ Israeli invasion of Rafah

US President Joe Biden Departure

Aamir Qureshi

The start of August will feature a glowing supermoon, beginning Tuesday evening and continuing into Wednesday. The spectacle will be the second-largest moon that has appeared to date this year.

The show won’t be a location-dependent event. Everyone will have the opportunity to see it.

“If you can see the moon, you can see the supermoon,” NASA ambassador Tony Rice said.

Supermoons are full moons that occur when the moon is at the closest point of orbit to the Earth. Supermoons can appear up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than the smallest-seeming full moon, according to <a href="https://moon.nasa.gov/news/29/teachable-moment-whats-a-supermoon-and-just-how-super-is-it/" target=_blank>NASA</a>.

While there isn’t an official definition for what a supermoon is — there are debates about what proximity distinguishes a full moon from a supermoon — Rice says four supermoons grace Earth’s skies each year. And they always happen consecutively.

“They always happened in fours, so our first one was last month. [Tonight is] the next one,” Rice said. They happen roughly 29½ days apart. The first <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/supermoon-wows-stargazers-around-the-world/2023/07/04/c5e6ed9c-095f-4327-8f2f-cb35fe236746_video.html" target=_blank>supermoon of the year</a>, the buck moon — referring to when young male deer begin to show antlers — wowed viewers at the beginning of July.

Why are people calling this a sturgeon supermoon?

In North America, August’s full moon is traditionally <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/08/01/astronomy-bluemoon-perseid-meteors-august/" target=_blank>known as the sturgeon moon</a> because this is the time of year when the continent’s largest freshwater fish are beginning their spawning season.

The name was a signal to Indigenous tribes around the Great Lakes area that August was the best time to fish for sturgeon.

“All those flower and animal names you see on full moons come from Native American traditions,” Rice said. “They refer to the good hunting or gathering that month, often focused on the northeastern U.S.”

When and where can you see the latest supermoon?

The supermoon will be at its fullest at 2:32 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, but skywatchers across the country will get the best show at moonrise. The Tuesday night moonrise is between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. local time in the United States. In the D.C. area, for example, <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/usa/washington-dc" target=_blank>it will be at 8:50 p.m.</a>, in Chicago at 8:43 p.m. and in San Francisco at 8:54 p.m. The moon will rise from the eastern horizon.

The supermoon will allow viewers across the world to see craters and dark volcanic areas with the naked eye, said Noah Petro, a scientist with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter project at NASA. He said the divots on the moon’s surface tell a story about the solar system’s history dating back over 3 billion years.

“If dinosaurs looked up at the moon, which I imagine they did, they would have seen a moon that looks a lot like the one we see,” Petro said.

If you miss the Tuesday night’s supermoon, there’s an opportunity to see another this month: A super blue moon will glow in the sky Aug. 31.

To the disappointment of some observers, super blue moons don’t bathe in blue hues in the way that blood moons are cast in a specific light. The name blue moon simply means that August will be dotted with two supermoons.

Skywatchers should mark their calendars for the super blue moon because this is truly a once-in-a-“blue moon” event. The last time a super blue moon appeared in the sky was Jan. 31, 2018, and the next won’t occur until Jan. 31, 2037, according to Rice.

The finale of 2023’s supermoon series — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/summer-seems-to-be-slowly-ending-theres-the-harvest-moon/2022/09/09/df6ce228-309d-11ed-a475-6a5c246b3b93_story.html" target="_blank">fall’s harvest moon </a>— will rise Sept. 29.

<i>Geoff Chester contributed to this report.</i>

National Association of Black Journalists' Student of the Year,  2022

Gracies Award recipient in the online video host or correspondent category, 2022

Society of Professional Journalists Region 1 winner for covid-19 newspaper, magazine and online coverage, 2020

Hofstra University, BA in Journalism with Minors in Meteorology and Global Studies

Amudalat Ajasa covers extreme weather news for The Washington Post and writes about how extreme weather and climate change are affecting communities in the United States and abroad.

Amudalat Ajasa

What is a sturgeon supermoon and where to see it

the-washington-post

PAKISTAN-ASTRONOMY-MOON

AFP/Getty Images

Extreme Weather

Climate

Capital Weather Gang

Environment

Climate Lab

Weather

washpost

Want to know how your actions can help make a difference for our planet? Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter, in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.

Coverage of weather forecasts and weather event updates from across the nation and the world, including extreme weather and analysis of weather patterns.