As summer slips into autumn and the nights start to get longer, the final supermoon of the year will make a big splash on Thursday (August 11).
Nicknamed the “Sturgeon Moon,” August is packed moon peak around 9:36 p.m. EDT Thursday (01:36 GMT Friday), though the moon will appear bright and full Wednesday and Friday night (Aug. 10 and Aug. 12).
Most publications consider this to be a supermoon, meaning the full moon occurs while the moon is closest to its closest point. land, also known as perigee, during the current orbit. The Sturgeon Moon will appear within 90% of perigee, making it a supermoon by most scientific definitions. (Some publications place specific distance or time restrictions on supermoons, which means that the Sturgeon Moon may not fit in all publications.) Supermoons can appear larger and up to 16% brighter in sky than the average full moon, according to timeanddate.com.
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The sturgeon moon will be the fourth supermoon in a row, after the Buck Moon in July, the Strawberry moon in June and Flower Moon (which also had a total Moon eclipse) in May. August’s full moon will be the last supermoon of the year, according to the Farmer’s Almanac.
Why the nickname fish? The Maine Farmer’s Almanac began printing Native American names for full moons in the 1930s, according to NASA, and these names have become common today. The name sturgeon moon comes to us from the Algonquian tribes of what is now eastern North America, as large sturgeon were more easily caught in the Great Lakes at this time of year.
The full moon occurs about once a month when the ground, the Earth and the Moon line up in an invisible 180 degree line. The Moon’s orbit is about 5 degrees different from the Earth’s, so it is usually slightly higher or lower than the Earth’s shadow, allowing the sun’s rays to illuminates the side facing the Earth.
The next full moon peaks on Saturday, September 10. This moon is usually called the Harvest Moon.
Originally published in Live Science.