Later this week, when this year’s harvest moon graces the night sky, it will also take on the role of a “supermoon,” bestowing it with the potential to appear slightly larger and more luminous.

This celestial spectacle represents the final supermoon of the year, following the buck supermoon in July and the sturgeon and blue supermoons in August.

Its ascent is anticipated between Thursday night and Friday morning, Axios reported.

The term “harvest moon” is linked to the fall equinox, which transpired on September 23rd this year.

The “harvest moon” signifies the nearest full moon to the autumnal equinox—one of the two equinoxes occurring annually—marking the official transition from summer to fall.

During equinoxes, the sun aligns precisely over the Equator, resulting in nearly equal durations of day and night. In the Southern Hemisphere, harvest moons also occur annually, typically in March or early April.

These harvest moons, along with the near-full moons that accompany them, have traditionally provided farmers with additional daylight hours to gather crops before the onset of the first frost, as explained by NASA.

Written by staff