See India's 'Supermoon' at 9pm tonight

Tonight if the moon looks bigger and brighter to you, don’t worry, you’re not seeing things. The moon really IS bigger. The phenomenon that news reports around the world are calling a ‘supermoon’ is actually what is known as perigee full moon, meaning the Moon appears up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter in the night sky.

According to global reports, at 9.05 pm IST, the distance between the earth and the moon will be 3,56,955 km, the closest this year, and the angular size of the moon will be 0.5515 degrees. This occurs because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular. As a result, this happens every year (the last supermoon was in March 2011), but the phenomenon will be even more obvious this year, because it coincides with a full moon.

Zee news spoke to Arvind Paranjpye, Director of the Mumbai-based Nehru Planetarium who said, “It is very interesting to note that on May 6, the moon will set at western horizon a few minutes before sunrise and then it will rise again on the same evening about an hour after the sunset”.

The unusually large moon will have a stronger than usual effect on sea tides, but scientists have dismissed concerns that this could cause natural disasters or strange behaviour. C.B. Devgun of the Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) said, “All that will happen is the moon will appear brighter and exert more influence on the tides due to its increased gravitational force. There is nothing to worry about this activity”.