- This event has passed.
Moon at Apogee: 405870 km
December 25, 2016 @ 12:55 am
From timeanddate.com: “The Moon’s path around the Earth is elliptical – with one side of the orbit closer to Earth than the other. The side closest to the Earth is called the perigee and the side farthest from the Earth is known as the apogee. On average the Moon is about 238800 miles (384500 km) from the Earth. However – because of the elliptical shape of the Moon’s orbit – the actual distance varies throughout the year between 225804 miles (363396 km) at the perigee and 251968 miles (405504 km) at the apogee.”
Glossary
Terms and definitions reproduced from basicastro.com.
Aphelion: Farthest position of a planet from the Sun.
Perihelion: Closest position of a planet from the Sun.
Apogee: the position of the Moon farthest from Earth.
Perigee: the position of the Moon closest from Earth.
Superior Conjunction: Venus or Mercury is on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth.
Inferior Conjunction: Venus or Mercury is between the Earth and Sun.
Greatest Elongation: elongation is the angle between the Sun and a planet as seen from Earth, during eastern elongation, the planet appears as an evening star, during western elongation, the planet appears as a morning star.
Opposition: position in the orbit of a planet when opposites the Sun as seen from Earth.
Conjunction: position in the orbit of a planet when appears closer to the Sun as seen from Earth.
Occultation: Moon occults or eclipses a planet or a star.
Events, dates, and times taken from (1) The Calendar of Astronomical Events, Courtesy of Fred Espenak, www.AstroPixels.com – (2) www.seasky.org – (3) www.universetoday.com – (4) earthsky.org – (5) in-the-sky.org – (6) aa.usno.navy.mil/publications/reports/ap16_for_web.pdf.
