Super Pink Moon

Super Pink Moon (7th April 2020) : A Celestial Trilogy for the Year 2020, 

The last three Images courtesy Wiki Commons
The first two images : Authors photographs taken today from our office terrace using our telescope.

The global Covid pandemic, about which I have written quite a few blogposts, has occupied all the sound and video tera bytes in the social media and scores of pages have been written and published in the digital and print media and therefore any other news or an event, other than the Covid, can at most draw a byline mention in the present Covid 19 time, which is plaguing nations. With this in view the connoisseurs of sky watch in India and my planetaria friends are trying to distract the minds of the people from the unending scare of Covid to draw people’s attention to a relatively rare celestial event, which will play out tonight, lasting until early morning of tomorrow. This celestial event is catchily phrased as the ‘Super Pink Moon’.

Notwithstanding the national lockdown, taking advantage of our stay in the office quarters my colleagues and I had organised a live Facebook telecast of the Super Pink Moon for the audience of our Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai to have a live view of the Super Pink Moon. Unfortunately we were unable to lay our hand on the attachments of our telescope and hence I used the quintessential Indian Jugad and used my I Pad to take the photographs from the eye piece of the telescope with great difficulties. The first two images seen in this blogpost are from the lens of my I-Pad, of which I am so very proud.

Tonights ‘Super Pink Moon’ reminds me of the the famous ibis trilogy of the noted author Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies, River or Smoke and Flood of Fire. Like Amitav Ghosh’s ibis trilogy, the Super Moons too come in trilogies - pairs of three and back to back. The Super Pink Moon, which is occurring tonight (7th April) and will last until tomorrow morning, is the second in the trilogy of the super moons this year, the first of which happened on 9th March and the third one will be happening on the the 7th May.

The Moon, the only natural satellite of our planet Earth, orbits around the Earth in an elliptical orbit and therefore the moon is sometimes closest to our Earth and at times farthest from the Earth. The closest point is called the perigee, and the furthest is the apogee. When a full moon falls on the perigee, the moon appears far bigger and brighter in the sky and therefore it is called as a ‘supermoon’ This phenomenon is not actually that rare as made out to be by the media. We had a Super Moon in March this year and we will have another one next month in May as stated above.

Since the current super moon occurrence is happening  in the month of April, it is called ‘Super Pink Moon’. But what then is a Pink Moon? It comes from the Native American names for full moons, the almanac of which was first published in the 1930s. According to the Maine Farmer's Almanac, the Pink Moon name is derived from one of the first flowers to bloom in spring; the Wild Ground Phlox, which also went by the name “moss pink.” The colour of the flower was given to the full moon occurring in this month and thus the full moon falling in the month of April came to be known as pink moon. But then the Pink Moon does not have anything to do with the colour of the Moon, rather in reality the moon in no way will appear as mystical and awe inspiring as the pink colour in the name indicates. Since the super moon is happening in the month of April it is called the Super Pink Moon, as it corresponds with the early springtime blooms of a certain wildflower native to eastern North America - Phlox Subulata commonly called creeping phlox or moss phlox and these flowers are pink in colour and are also called “moss pink.”  Thanks to this seasonal association, and the colour of the moss phlox flowers, the full Moon in April has come to be known as the Pink Moon and since this April’s full moon also happens to be a Super Moon, it is called as the ‘Super Pink Moon’, making the name  trendy and quite appealing to modern times.

The global Covid pandemic has also compelled us to have a diminishing attention span for any other events other than concentrating on nothing but its perceived monstrous effects, which is getting played out on every media non stop 24x7, seven days a week. Therefore it is no wonder that the ‘Super Pink Moon’ spectacle, which occurs tonight has been hyped up by skywatchers and planetary scientists to divert our attention from Covid and to look at the night sky and observe this rare celestial event, forgetting momentarily the Covid pandemic. The national lockdown has also brought down the carbon emissions substantially and this has resulted in clearer skies, which will enable us to have an excellent view of the Super Pink Moon, which hopefully will help us all to romanticise the end of the Covid, as early as possible.

The term Super Moon term has come into prominence since March 2011. Back in March 2011, NASA published an article describing a “ Super Full Moon” and the precise time when this ‘Full Moon in March 2011’ occurred was 59 minutes before perigee - the Moon’s closest approach to Earth as it travels along its elliptical orbit - a near perfect coincidence that happens only every 18 years or so. This was a worthwhile observation to report in 2011. But then even today, nine years later, the ‘Super Moon’ craze has not died down. Tonight the Super Pink Moon will arrive at its closest point at a distance of 3,56,907 kilometres at 11.38 PM (Indian Standard Time) and at 8.08 AM, tomorrow morning the moon will officially turn full, of course that will not be visible for us since it will be morning time in India. The Super Moon, which we witnessed last month on 9th March was just about 115 km farther away  therefore the moon that we will see tonight will appear slightly larger  compared to the March full moon.

Having been locked down in home for quite some time, please take time out tonight to come to your balconies or such other places, which will give you a clear site, while maintaining that physical distancing and taking all possible precautions as are advised by the Ministry of Health and WHO for the Covid conditions, for sighting the relatively rare celestial phenomenon, called the Super Pink Moon. Incidentally the Super Pink Moon today also happens to be the Hanuman Jayanti.

Wishing you all a very happy Hanuman Jayanthi and happy moon viewing