READERS may well have noticed that the moon has been in the news this week. In a normal year there are 12 full moons, one in each calendar month. November's is traditionally known as the Snow Moon (very apt considering our recent weather) and it appeared on the 14th of the month this year – Monday of this week.

What made this particular one special is that it was what astronomers call a supermoon. By that they mean that the moon appeared larger and brighter than normal.

Now, obviously the actual size of the moon cannot change; what does alter is the distance it is from us on earth, due to its not-quite-circular orbit. This supermoon has hit the headlines because it is the closest our near neighbour has been for almost 70 years.

If the sky was clear enough to see the moon where you were on Monday night, it should have looked enormous – 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than usual. Don't worry if you haven't seen it yet because today (Wednesday) it will be almost as good....weather permitting.

For the next seven days the earth's shadow will be eating into one side of the moon, but not much has gone yet. When it is in this state the moon is said to be "waning gibbous".

When more than half of the moon disappears it is termed a "waning crescent" until the 29th of the month when it disappears completely.

The following night a "new" moon will appear and develop over the subsequent two weeks as a "waxing crescent" then a "waxing gibbous".

The full 29 1/2 day cycle will be complete on December 14 when the next full moon appears. December's is known as the Oak Moon and this year’s will also be a supermoon.

Strictly speaking, the nearest cosmic neighbour to us, at 1/4 the size of Earth, is our twin planet. It is the moon, but it's too big to be officially classed as a moon, if that makes sense.

Having a huge gravitational body alongside our planet has a profound effect on the natural world, mainly through the phenomenon of tides.

As the earth rotates, the side facing the moon has all of its water pulled outwards making the oceans deeper and causing high tides. The water disappears from other places unaffected by the moon so they consequently experience low tides. Without this daily tidal cycle mangrove forests and estuarine mudflats would not exist.

On our own Yorkshire coast there would be no blanket of seaweed across the rocks of the seashore or the fantastic variety of intertidal life in rock pools.

There is another lunar effect out there which is a lot less obvious than tides. Just as humans use the phases of the moon to measure time, so do many animals and plants, usually to synchronise mass events.

Corals on tropical reefs, for example, all spawn at the same time following a particular full moon and some species of plant synchronise their pollen production in the same way.

Closer to home, I am currently taking part in a national survey looking into lugworm reproduction. It involves hundreds of volunteer observers all around the British coast recording when male lugworms release their reproductive fluids onto sandy beaches and goes by the brilliant name of spermwatch.

If lugworm reproduction is synchronised across the country it is probably under lunar control, if not then water temperature is likely to be the crucial factor.

You can follow the progress of the survey at capturingourcoast.co.uk