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Supermoon hides Geminids trail, Cloud spread through the skies [VIDEO]

By Jesmae Anne Aurita | Update Date: Dec 14, 2016 09:38 AM EST

The third "supermoon" of 2016, 1st in October and 2nd in November, made it difficult for people to see the Geminids on Tuesday night.

Fragments of the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, the Geminids, were dimmed when the brightness of the "supermoon" overpowered it in Dec. 13/14. Despite the misfortune, some people actually got lucky and caught the meteor shower in the picture. Telegraph featured an Instagram user named "birdy smith" who caught it despite the minute chance of getting one. Chloe Heathcote, also an Instagram user, expressed her disbelief and confusion when she woke up at 7:30am and found out that the moon was still out like it's midnight. The supermoon made her question if it was 7am.

What is a supermoon?

Supermoon occurs when a new moon or a full moon makes the closest approach to the Earth called perigee making the lunar disk appear largest as seen in the Earth. The technical name of this phenomenon is perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system.

What is a Geminid?

Telegraph said that Geminids come from a radiant in the constellation Gemini, hence its name, and were first observed in 1862, and the year of Perseids (36AD) and Leonids' (902AD). The heat of the sun causes it to break off when its "rock comet" orbit brings it near the extremely hot heavenly body. The slowly moving meteors of this shower peak in December. Geminids are the only meteor shower that is thought to come not from the comets but from the asteriod called Palladian asteroid.

In spite of the fact that the "supermoon's" glare was beaming, Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society told CNET that the meteors would last longer and would produce longer streaks in the sky and would be impressive, nonetheless. Only the skywatchers can tell if the "supermoon" of December really hid the Geminids' trail.

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