A perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system is more commonly called "the supermoon." It occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon's closest approach to the Earth, so that it looks much larger than normal. Once in a while this phenomenon also coincides with a total lunar eclipse, when the sun, Earth and moon are aligned to form a straight line. When the Earth eclipses a full moon, the direct sunlight is blocked, but the sun's rays still light up the moon, which is not a light source itself but merely a reflector of solar light; this light, however, has travelled through the Earth's atmosphere first, sometimes causing the totally eclipsed moon to look red or brownish, a "blood moon."
A perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system is more commonly called "the supermoon." It occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon's closest approach to the Earth, so that it looks much larger than normal. Once in a while this phenomenon also coincides with a total lunar eclipse, when the sun, Earth and moon are aligned to form a straight line. When the Earth eclipses a full moon, the direct sunlight is blocked, but the sun's rays still light up the moon, which is not a light source itself but merely a reflector of solar light; this light, however, has travelled through the Earth's atmosphere first, sometimes causing the totally eclipsed moon to look red or brownish, a "blood moon."
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