A supermoon is appearing in the sky tonight as the moon gets the closest it’s been to Earth since 1948.

Matangi Tonga photographed the supermoon rising over 'Oneata and Pangaimotu Islands as seen from Queen Sālote Wharf, Nuku'alofa this evening. The orb is so bright that our camera was able to capture details on the surface of the moon (tele 2000mm) at night.

Observer

Astronomer and science lecturer, Firitia Velt, who resides in Tonga, said that it is a full moon tonight and anyone who doesn't gaze at the moon regularly may not notice the difference in the size of the supermoon unless they were gazing at the moon over several nights or taking photographs of the moon over several nights. 

A supermoon is the closest a full moon gets to the earth in a year.

Explaining the phenomenon, NASA’s Deputy Scientist for its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, Noah Petro told Space.com that, “As we know the orbit of the moon is not a perfect circle, it gets closer then further away.”

“This one is historically close. The moon hasn’t been this close to the earth since January 1948,” said Noah.

He added that the supermoon is only going to be about 30km further from the January 1948 approach.

“It will appear to be about 14% larger in the night sky than the smallest full moon, but maybe what’s most noticeable is it will be about 30% brighter,” he said.

The supermoon causes pulling of the Earth's ocean and the Earth's crust and results in tides being a little higher than normal.

The astronomical name for a supermoon is perigee-syzygy.  Perigee is the point on the Moon’s orbit closest to the Earth and syzygy (pronounced sisigy) is when the Earth, Sun and Moon line up as the Moon orbits the Earth.

The next supermoon won’t occur again until 25 November 2034.

Updated 15 November 2016:

Tonga had another night of a Supermoon on 15 November as it glowed even brighter than the night before with 99.8% illumination - like a small sun (the following table is adjusted for UTC+14 hours). Movie Supermoon rising above Pangaimotu Island 15 November 2016.