A commercial airliner flies Northwest across Lake Michigan in front of the "Full Buck" supermoon, the first of four supermoons in 2023, July 3, 2023, in Chicago. The cosmos is offering up a double feature in August: a pair of supermoons. Catch the first show Tuesday night, Aug. 2, as the full moon rises in the southeast. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)
The cosmos is offering up a double feature in August: a pair of supermoons culminating in a rare blue moon.
Catch the first show Tuesday evening as the full moon rises in the southeast, appearing slightly brighter and bigger than normal. That’s because it will be closer than usual, just 222,159 miles (357,530 kilometers) away, thus the supermoon label.
The moon will be even closer the night of Aug. 30 — a scant 222,043 miles (357,344 kilometers) distant. Because it’s the second full moon in the same month, it will be what's called a blue moon.
“Warm summer nights are the ideal time to watch the full moon rise in the eastern sky within minutes of sunset. And it happens twice in August,” said retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak, dubbed Mr. Eclipse for his eclipse-chasing expertise.
The last time two full supermoons graced the sky in the same month was in 2018. It won’t happen again until 2037, according to Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project.
Masi will provide a live webcast of Tuesday evening’s supermoon, as it rises over the Coliseum in Rome.
“My plans are to capture the beauty of this ... hopefully bringing the emotion of the show to our viewers,” Masi said in an email.
“The supermoon offers us a great opportunity to look up and discover the sky,” he added.
This year’s first supermoon was in July. The fourth and last will be in September. The two in August will be closer than either of those.
Provided clear skies, binoculars or backyard telescopes can enhance the experience, Espenak said, revealing such features as lunar maria — the dark plains formed by ancient volcanic lava flows — and rays emanating from lunar craters.
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the August full moon is traditionally known as the sturgeon moon. That’s because of the abundance of that fish in the Great Lakes in August, hundreds of years ago.
Catching you up on the stories you need to know this morning, mass shooting victims testify on Capitol Hill, the White House outlines its plan to vaccinate kids younger than five years old, and we break down how to protect yourself from monkeypox.
The pharmaceutical giant Moderna says its updated 'bivalent' booster shot provides a stronger immune response against the Omicron variant of COVID-19 specifically. This week, Moderna plans to submit preliminary data to U.S. health officials in the hopes that its new booster will be available later this summer. Dr. Sampson Davis, emergency medicine physician, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
NASA has announced that the first official full-color images will be beamed back to Earth from the James Webb Telescope on July 12. Gregory L. Robinson, the director of the James Webb Space Telescope Program in the NASA Science Mission Directorate, joined Cheddar News to discuss the anticipated image drop. “We expect to see the universe different," he said. "Webb will allow us to see much, much clearer and deeper into the universe."
On this episode of Cheddar Reveals, Professor Laurence Hurst, Director of The Milner Centre for Evolution, discusses the mystery of human evolution that's still baffling scientists: why are humans still evolving, and why has the process sped up? Neville Sanjana, faculty member at NY Genome and New York University, breaks down the latest innovations in CRISPR genetic engineering and its applications from 'designer babies' to curing genetic conditions and diseases; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'The Butterfly Effect.'
Neville Sanjana, faculty member at NY Genome and New York University, joins Cheddar Reveals to break down the latest innovations in CRISPR genetic engineering and its applications from 'designer babies' to curing genetic conditions and diseases.
Professor Laurence Hurst, Director of The Milner Centre for Evolution, joins Cheddar Reveals to discuss the mystery of human evolution that's still baffling scientists: why are humans still evolving, and why has the process sped up?
It can be tough to make sustainable choices, and even harder when sustainable materials don't hold up. Loliware has a solution to the plastic straw problem: its seaweed-based straws are stronger than paper alternatives and once used, can be composted and return to the earth or sea without causing harm. Sea Briganti, CEO of Loliware, joins Closing Bell to discuss the tech behind the straws, new product launches, and more.
Umbilical cord blood banking platform Anja Health raised $4.5 million dollars in a seed round led by Seven Seven Six, a venture capital firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Anja Health offers a personalized, doctor-backed cord blood bank, which lets new parents freeze stem cells from their child's umbilical cord so they can be used to treat diseases in the future. It's a process Anja has called 'Hollywood's best-kept secret,' as celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Serena Williams, and more have all banked their umbilical cord blood. Kathryn Cross, the founder of Anja Health, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
After learning that the suspect in the Uvalde school shooting posted about his intentions on Facebook, activists are urging social networks to make changes. Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist and author of "The Facebook Narcissist," joined Cheddar News to discuss the role social media plays in school shootings. "They're not really invested in taking down hateful content," she said about social platforms."In regards to the shooting, it was 15 minutes before that actual threat. It would be pretty hard for a social media company to trace that threat that quickly. But what they can do better is take down threats and hateful content much faster and more than they're doing now."
Esper Bionics CEO Dima Gazda breaks down how they're creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it, and what this innovation means for the future of the prosthetics industry.
