Last month’s full moon in Chicago was largely obscured by wildfire smoke and fireworks, but residents will get two chances to see supermoons in the month of August.
According to the Adler Planetarium, Chicago will not only get the double supermoon experience, but a meteor shower to boot in between.
The first full moon of August arrived at approximately 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, but Chicago residents will of course have to wait until the evening hours to see the “sturgeon supermoon.”
A “supermoon” occurs when a full moon or a new moon is within 90% of its closest point to Earth, and not only will we get that once in the month of August, but the Chicago area will get two of them.
In fact, the second full moon of the month will be the closest to perigee that the Earth will see this year, meaning that it will be the full moon that occurs at the closest point to the planet’s surface in 2023.
What’s more, the second full moon is what is known as a “Blue Moon,” a name given to a second full moon that occurs within a single calendar month.
Of course, that does not mean that the moon is actually “blue” in hue.
Local
As a result, that occurrence could technically be called a “super blue sturgeon moon,” according to astronomers.
That moon will rise on the night of Aug. 30 in the Chicago area.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter.
For those who will be impatient for celestial spectacles between the supermoons, the Perseid meteor shower will peak this month as well. The zenith of the show, which can produce more than 100 meteors per hour, will occur on the morning of Aug. 13 before dawn, according to NASA.
