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Get ready for a stellar night, literally.  Tonight’s full moon will be the biggest and brightest one of 2010.

The moon is usually, on average, about 238,855 miles away from the Earth, but it’s important to note that its orbit around our planet is an ellipse, not a perfect circle. One side of that orbit is 31,070 miles closer than the other.

When the moon is at its closest point, that is called “perigee”.  Every so often, a perigee coincides with a full moon, making the moon bigger and brighter than any other moon seen in that year, and that’s the case tonight.

C.B. Devgun of Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) says that this particular moon will be about 15 percent larger and about 30 percent brighter than any other we will see this year.

“The moon’s orbit is an ellipse with one side 50,000 km closer to earth than the other. In the language of astronomy, the two extremes are called ‘apogee’ (far away) and ‘perigee’ (nearby).

“On January 30, the moon becomes full three hours after reaching perigee, making it bigger and brighter than we are going to see for the rest of 2010,” said Devgun.

This will also be the first full moon of the year 2010, making it the “wolf moon”. This term has its origins in Native American culture and the notion that hungry wolves would howl at the full moon on chilled winter nights.

As an added bonus, Mars will also be making an appearance in tonight’s sky, just to the left of the wolf moon. As the sun is setting in the southwest, Mars will be rising in the northeast.

This year, Mars will be as close as 61 million miles from our Earth, and will still be remarkably bright during tonight’s epic wolf moon.

“To the naked eye it will appear as a bright, orange-colored star right next to the full moon—the pair will jump out at you for sure,” said Marc Jobin, an astronomer at the Montreal Planetarium.

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