Moon over manhattan

This Saturday’s New Moon will be the closest New Moon to Earth in a period of 1337 years. Moon over manhattan New Moon of January 2023 coincides with the point in the Moon’s orbit where it is closest to Earth. The next time the New Moon is this close to Earth will be 345 years from now, making this the closest New Moon in 1337 years. Moon phases visualized—where is the Moon?

Instead, it has an elliptical shape, like a slightly stretched circle. This means the distance between the Moon and Earth changes over the course of a month. This leads to the phenomena of Supermoons and Micromoons, where the Moon is particularly near or far away. The most extreme Earth-Moon distances of all occur when Earth is near its closest point to the Sun, which is called perihelion.

Currently, perihelion falls around the beginning of January. Our calculations used the best available figures for the Moon’s position over long periods of time. This is a set of data called DE431, which was produced by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. It should be noted that, according to this data, there is only a few kilometers’ difference between these distances. What Does This Mean for Us? So this will be the closest New Moon—and also, therefore, the largest—since the 11th century.