
This year's closest and largest full moon will occur on June 23 at precisely 11:32 Universal Time. At United States' time zones, that means the moon will turn full on June 23 at 7:32 a.m. EDT, 6:32 a.m. CDT, 5:32 a.m. MDT and 4:32 a.m. PDT. We astronomers call this sort of close full moon a perigee full moon. The word perigee describes the moon's closest point to Earth for a given month. Two years ago, when the closest and largest full moon fell on March 19, 2011, many used a term we'd never heard before: supermoon. Last year, we heard this term again to describe the year's closest full moon on May 6, 2012.
This year, we also hear the term supermoon referring to the year's closest full moon on June 23, 2013. What does supermoon mean exactly? And how special is the June 23, 2013 supermoon?
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