April Pink Supermoon To Brighten The Sky On Monday Night

Just a few more days, and you'll get to watch the April Pink Supermoon that will lighten up the night sky.

The April Pink Supermoon will make the sky bright before midnight Monday. The moon will be at its fullest around 11:32 pm EDT or 3:31 am UTC, Tuesday, April 27. For three consecutive days, it will appear full, starting Sunday night (April 25) until Wednesday (April 28).

The Pink Supermoon will be nearer to Earth than any other full moons for the year 2021, except for one. This May 26, the full moon will be nearer, overthrowing April's Pink Supermoon by a total of 98 miles or 157 kilometers. It's equivalent to 0.04% of the moon's distance to Earth, called perigee.

April Pink Supermoon won't appear pink as the color implies. Rather, it got its name from the Northeastern American native pink wildflower called Phlox subulata. It usually blooms and displays its vivid colors of pink during springtime. This flower is also commonly known as creeping phlox, mountain phlox, herb moss pink, and moss phlox. 

It also goes by the name of the Egg Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, and Fish Moon by North American coastal tribes after the fish, shad, which swims upstream during this time of the year to spawn. 

NASA said that the April Pink Supermoon is the first of two moons this 2021. The second supermoon will reveal itself on May 26. American Astrologer, Richard Nolle came up with the word "supermoon" in 1979. From then on, the media uses it to denote what astronomers would name a perigean full moon. 

Moreover, the agency exclaimed that various publications and organizations use barely different thresholds for concluding which full moons make the cut as supermoons. However, for this year, all agree that the two full moons in April and May are indeed supermoons.