By Brigit Katz
Smithsonian.com
A harvest moon—or the full moon that happens nearest to the fall equinox—is due to appear in the sky on the night of Friday the 13th. It may be an inauspicious date, but fans of lunar phenomena will find themselves feeling lucky, because something rare is set to happen this year. The harvest moon often appears large and orange, since many people observe it as it surfaces above the horizon. But in 2019, the harvest moon will seem unusually small.
As Jenna Amatulli reports for the Huffington Post, this phenomenon is known as a “micromoon,” which occurs when a full moon happens close to the lunar apogee, or the point at which the moon is farthest from Earth. (A supermoon, which appears large in the sky, happens when the full moon coincides with the perigee, or the moon’s closest approach to our planet). To people watching from the ground, a micromoon looks around 14 percent smaller than a typical full moon, according to the Time and Date.
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