Written by Agastya Sharma, a grade 8 student (junior editor at I Kid You Not)

Recently, on the 26-27^th of April, a rare occurrence known as a supermoon was witnessed by people all over the globe. And I’m here to tell you all about it.

What is a supermoon?

A supermoon is a term named by an astrologer called Richard Nolle around 1980, and it means either a new or a full moon that occurs when the Moon is at 90% of perigee.

Perigee means the closest point a satellite can get to in relation to its celestial body. This only happens because the orbits of planets and their satellites are not perfect circles, they are more in the shape of ellipses, allowing the orbiter to get relatively close to the planet. So, in this case, the moon is technically at the closest it can ever get to the Earth. Because of this, the moon appears larger and brighter, although since the moon is hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, the change is imperceptible to the naked human eye.

This most recent supermoon was on the 26^th of April, and it was a full supermoon, considering that we are unable to see new supermoons unless it passes in front of the Sun. There is going to be another full supermoon around May 26^th, and astrologers believe these two supermoons to be tied together, because of their rare consecutive occurrence.

The supermoon on 26^th April signified many things, for many religions. Eastern Christianity (a sect in the religion) believes this to be the full moon before Easter, called the Paschal Moon. Western Christianity thinks this to be the full moon after Easter, both of which were incredibly important to the religion. For Hindus, this was Hanuman Jayanti, the birth of the monkey god Hanuman, a loyal soldier in Lord Rama’s army for his conquest of Lanka. For Buddhists, this moon corresponds with Bak Poya, the time when the Buddha visited Sri Lanka, and made peace between two opposing chiefs, stopping a war.

The Islamic religion observes this supermoon in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan, which commemorates Prophet Muhammad receiving the Quran, the holy book from the angel Gabriel. This was another tribute to the beauty of nature, albeit a rare one.

And that’ll be all from me today! Stay safe!

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