Out of This World!

Expect a Supermoon This Weekend

After Friday’s summer solstice solar flare.

Is the rest of the solar system having a big party we weren’t invited to? First was the Friday summer solstice, when the sun seemed to celebrate its biggest time to shine by sending up a solar flare about two hours before sunset. The relatively mild flare was followed up by a “coronal mass ejection,” which sent billions of tons of solar material into space at 1,349 MPH. Now the moon’s getting in on the action: this weekend, prepare for a supermoon. A supermoon, or pedigree full moon, happens when the moon hits its closest point to Earth in its orbit. What does this mean? The moon will seem 30 percent bigger and 14 percent brighter than at its farthest point. How romantic.