White Lotus

As seen on the National Geographic News the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, India, seems poised to swallow the full moon. Due to the moon’s egg-shaped orbit, our natural satellite is at perigee —its closest approach to Earth— about once a month. The term “supermoon” describes a full moon that coincides with perigee. The photographed full moon of 2012 May 5 was the largest of the year. However as the word supermoon might resemble, the angular size of the moon does not change that much, not noticeable to inexperienced eyes at all. Supermoons are just slightly larger in apparent size.