‘Supermoon' appears Saturday night

By Larry Hartstein

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

There was a "bad moon rising" Saturday night.

This so-called "supermoon" started to appear shortly after 8 p.m. The moon was full but it was also gleaming.

The moon was so popular, it even got its own hashtag on Twitter, and people were posting photos of the bright moon on Facebook and elsewhere.

The "supermoon" occurs when a new or full moon is in its closest orbit to our planet. Saturday the moon was 356,577 kilometers away, the closest it's been in 18 years.

"The moon will be a little closer than it was last year, 1/4000 of a percent closer," Gordon Johnston, planetary program executive for NASA, told FoxNews.com. "The distance between the Earth and the moon changes a lot in its orbit. Really the only change is that it appears bigger when it's close. This coming full moon will be the brightest of the year."

Astrologer Richard Nolle, who coined the term "supermoon" in the 1970s, warns of a "supermoon risk window" from March 16-22, saying there will be an increase in tidal surges and earthquakes. But scientists dispute that vehemently, and say the Japan earthquake had nothing to do with the supermoon.

The moon was at its most distant point in its orbit the morning of the massive earthquake, so its gravitational influence was actually less than usual, according to David Dundee, astronomer at the Tellus Museum in Cartersville.

Dundee noted that Nolle also predicted the end of the world in 1999.

Reporter Kristi E. Swartz contributed to this article