Don't miss the largest supermoon of the year on July 13

The largest and brightest supermoon of this year will appear on Wednesday.

At 9:00 GMT, July 13, a near-full moon will arrive at its closest point to the Earth for 2022 at a distance of about 353,000 kilometers, according to the Beijing Planetarium. It will turn completely full about 10 hours later.

The supermoon can be observed starting from the evening of July 13 in China, and will reach its peak at about 3:00 a.m. July 14.

How does a supermoon occur?

The moon moves around the Earth on an elliptical path, sometimes closer to the planet and sometimes farther away. The closest point of the orbit is called perigee, and the most distant approach is apogee.

It takes the moon 27.3 days to orbit the Earth, and 29.5 days to cycle from one full moon to the next. A full moon appears once a month and can appear anywhere in its orbit.

A supermoon occurs when a full moon reaches the perigee.

We get 12 or 13 full moons each year, but not every full moon is a supermoon.

July's full moon is the largest and brightest in 2022, Xiu Lipeng, a member of the Chinese Astronomical Society and director of the Tianjin Astronomical Society,told China Media Group.

How to observe a supermoon?

A full moon at perigee appears 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than that at apogee, but only 7 percent larger and 15 percent brighter than an average full moon.It's difficult to tell the differences with the naked eye.

But you can indeed see highlands and lowlands on the moon with the naked eye.

Binoculars or telescopes are recommended, through which the details in craters, mountains, ridges and other huge features on the moon can be observed.

The moon seems larger to the naked eye when it is near the horizon at moonrise and moonset. That's because it is in proximity to the buildings and trees on the ground and can be compared with them.