Science

Space Photos of the Week: The Super Pink Moon

Our natural satellite has inspired great writers for centuries. So we've paired these images with verses from literary stargazers—can you guess them?

This past week, much of the world was treated to a super pink moon, and if you were one of many who missed out due to clouds or rain, don’t worry! This gallery of other supermoon shots will make up for it.

A supermoon is a full moon that happens when the stony satellite is closest to Earth in its orbit. And, yes, while moonrises and moonsets make the moon look bigger because it’s behind buildings or natural objects that make it look huge by comparison, supermoons are in fact on average 7 percent bigger than a normal full moon and 15 percent brighter. But the super pink moon is not really pink. It’s just called that because a pink North American wildflower called Phlox subulata blooms in early April.

Writers and poets love the moon, super or not, so this week we’ll offer a series of moon-related quotes and poems. Guess the author, then scroll down to the bottom for the answers.

Photograph: Getty Images
  1. “Swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, / That monthly changes in her circled orb, / Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”
Photograph: Yui Mok/Getty Images
  1. “The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, / Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, / Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; / For nothing now can ever come to any good.”
Photograph: Getty Images
  1. “Ah, Moon—and Star! / You are very far— / But were no one / Farther than you— / Do you think I'd stop / For a Firmament— / Or a Cubit—or so? // I could borrow a Bonnet / of the Lark— / And a Chamois' Silver Boot— / And a stirrup of an Antelope— / And be with you—Tonight! // But, Moon, and Star, / Though you're very far— / There is one—farther than you— / He—is more than a firmament—from Me— / So I can never go!”
Photograph: Fatih Kurt/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
  1. “Know that my beloved is hidden from everyone / Know that she is beyond the belief of all beliefs / Know that in my heart she is as clear as the moon / Know that she is the life in my body and in my soul.”
Photograph: Kirill Kudryavtsev
  1. “The cat went here and there / And the moon spun round like a top, / And the nearest kin of the moon, / The creeping cat, looked up. / Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, / For, wander and wail as he would, / The pure cold light in the sky / Troubled his animal blood.”
Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
  1. “Tis moonlight, summer moonlight, / All soft and still and fair; / The solemn hour of midnight / Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere, // But most where trees are sending / Their breezy boughs on high, / Or stooping low are lending / A shelter from the sky.”
Key
  1. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
  2. W. H. Auden, “Funeral Blues”
  3. Emily Dickinson, “Ah Moon and Star!”
  4. Rumi
  5. William Butler Yeats, “The Cat and the Moon”
  6. Emily Bronte, “Moonlight, Summer Moonlight”

Head over here to look at more space photos.

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