The biggest and brightest full moon of the year arrived Saturday night as our celestial neighbor passed closer to Earth than usual.

At 11:34 p.m. (EST) on May 5, the moon was about 356,956 km from Earth. That's about 24,623 km closer than average, AP reported.

That proximity makes the moon appear about 14 percent bigger than it would if the moon were at its farthest distance, said Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Still, the difference in appearance is so small that "you'd be very hard-pressed to detect that with the unaided eye," he said.

(China.org.cn, CNTV May 9, 2012)

周六晚間，全年最大最亮的滿月上演蒼穹，原因是我們的太空近鄰比往常更接近地球。

據美聯社報道，美國東部時間5日夜間11時34分（北京時間6日午后12時34分），地月距離約為356956千米，比平均值近了24623千米。

美國海軍天文臺的杰奧夫·切斯特說，較短的距離使得月亮比它在最遠端時看起來大14%左右。

但他說這種區別十分微小，“憑借肉眼的話，人們需要十分努力才能看得出來。”