While the night sky might be set aglow with fireworks and bonfires in the UK next Wednesday, there’s another dazzling sight that evening that you’ll be able to see across the globe: the biggest supermoon of the year. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

If you’re unfamiliar, a supermoon is the name for when a full Moon happens at the same time as when the Moon is at its closest point to the Earth in its orbit. It’s more of a casual term than an actual scientific one, though – the proper astronomical name for the event is a perigee-syzygy Moon.

When this happens, the full Moon can appear anywhere up to 14 percent bigger than when the Moon is at its most distant, which isn’t a particularly noticeable difference to the eye.

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