November 5 is famous for rockets, sparklers and Catherine Wheels, but this year the fireworks will have competition in the sky.
The most dramatic supermoon of the year is due to rise on Bonfire Night, providing a stunning backdrop to displays.
Look up, and you might be lost for words from the size of this luminous Beaver.
Full moons takes their names from Native American lunar calendars which marked the changing seasons by the full moon.
Jake Foster, astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, told Metro: ‘November’s full Moon is know as the Beaver Moon, and this year it will also be a supermoon.
‘A supermoon occurs when a full Moon coincides with the Moon being at its closest approach to the Earth in its orbit around us.
‘The reason that this happens is because the Moon’s orbit around Earth is not a perfect circle in shape, it is elliptical (like a squashed circle or oval).
‘Therefore, sometimes it is closer and sometimes it is further away, affecting its apparent size and brightness.’
While there isn’t full agreement on why November’s moon is named the Beaver Moon, some think it is because the animals are busy beavering away building their dams for winter.
The closest supermoon since 2019
It’s not an optical illusion: the Moon will look bigger because it genuinely is closer to Earth than usual.
At its closest point to Earth (perigee), it is around 220,000 miles away. At its furthest point (apogee), it is around 250,000 miles away.
To class as a supermoon, the full moon must be within 90% of its perigee. On the other hand, if it’s especially far away, we call it a micromoon.
According to Nasa, on November 5 the Moon will be just 221,823 miles from Earth.
This will be the closest it has been since February 2019, when the Snow Moon was just 83 miles closer.
Jake said that that on November 5, the moon will be around 18,600 miles (30,000km) closer to us than its average distance.
‘The result is that the Moon looks around 7% larger and 15% brighter than it does on average,’ he said.
‘Its closer proximity can also have other effects on the Earth, such as raising the tides to a higher level than usual.’
When is the Beaver Supermoon?
The moon will technically be at its fullest at 1.19pm on November 5 in the UK.
Obviously, that’s still the middle of the day, but the Moon will still be very impressively big and round once the Sun goes down.
October’s Harvest Moon was also a supermoon, and the upcoming Cold Moon on December 4 is set to be a whopper as well.
While the Moon reaches both its perigee and apogee once every 27 days, it’s more rare for the closest point to coincide with the full moon, making a supermoon.
What is the UK weather forecast for Bonfire Night?
The Met Office say the coming week will be ‘unsettled and very mild’.
Wednesday is looking to be often cloudy, with showers or longer spells of rain moving through, though there will be ‘some drier and brighter interludes between weather systems’.
In London, while the weather won’t be clear, it should be possible to see the Moon peeking between the clouds, with only patchy coverage.
A full moon in Taurus
According to Metro’s astrologer Kerry King, the full moon in Taurus means people will feel ‘reflective and eager to celebrate all you’ve built, created, forged and established in 2025. You worked hard!’
She said that Venus also moves into Scorpio, lending a healing note to fractured relationships, while Mars moving into Sagittarius livens up our ideas about ambition and purpose: ‘Dare I say, we might all feel “on a high” this week.’
Read her full predictions for this week here.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Kim Kardashian’s feud with NASA escalates after her claim moon landing was fake
MORE: What is comet 3I/ATLAS and where did it come from?
MORE: Saturn and Jupiter bless these three star signs for the last week of October
