[ad_1]
The full moon shows its face to Earth about once a month. Well, sort of.
Most of the time, the full moon is not perfectly full. We still see the same side of the moon, but part of it is in the shadows. It is only when the moon, earth, and sun are perfectly aligned that the moon is 100% full and this alignment produces a lunar eclipse.
And sometimes – once in a blue moon – the moon is full twice a month (or four times a season, whichever definition you prefer).
This month’s full moon is this weekend on Sunday, March 28 at 2:48 p.m. EDT (6:48 p.m. UTC), but the moon will appear full the night before and after its peak for the casual stargazer. The March Full Moon is sometimes known as the Worm Moon, although it has many other nicknames from different cultures. You can find out what else to do with the March Full Moon here.
Related: Night sky, March 2021: what you can see this month
Orion GoScope II 70 Telescope: $ 84.99 at Amazon
If you know a youngster who can’t get enough of the moon, then he’ll be happy to see through the Orion GoScope II. Revealing craters and seas up close, this tiny telescope comes complete with a carrying case and moon map.
Full moons in 2021
This is when the full moons will occur in 2021, according to NASA:
| Dated | Last name | Eastern Time in the United States | UTC |
| 28 Jan | lupine moon | 2:16 p.m. | 19:16 |
| Feb 27 | Snow moon | 3 h 17 | 8:17 a.m. |
| March 28 | Worm moon | 2:48 p.m. | 18:48 |
| Apr 26 | Pink moon | 23:31 | 3:31 p.m. (April 27) |
| May 26 | Flower moon | 7:14 | 11:14 |
| June 24 | Strawberry moon | 2:40 p.m. | 6:40 p.m. |
| Jul 23 | Buck moon | 10:37 a.m. | 2:37 (Jul 24) |
| 22 august | Sturgeon moon | 8:02 | 12:02 |
| Sep 20 | Corn moon | 7:55 a.m. | 23:55 |
| 20 october | Harvest moon | 10:57 a.m. | 14:57 |
| November 19 | Beaver Moon | 3 h 58 | 8:58 a.m. |
| Dec 18 | Cold moon | 23:36 | 4:36 (Dec 19) |
Additional full moon names
Many cultures have given distinct names to the full moon of each month. The names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. the Farmer’s Almanac lists several names commonly used in the United States. There are some variations in moon names, but in general the same were used among the Algonquin tribes from New England west to Lake Superior. European settlers followed their own customs and created some of their own names.
Other Native Americans had different names. In the book “This Day in North American Indian History” (Da Capo Press, 2002), author Phil Konstantin lists over 50 indigenous peoples and their names for full moons. He also lists them on his website, AmericanIndian.net.
Amateur astronomer Keith Cooley has a brief list of moon names from other cultures, including Chinese and Celtic, on his website. For example,
Chinese moon names:
| Month | Last name | Month | Last name |
| January | Holiday moon | July | Hungry ghost moon |
| February | Budding moon | August | Harvest moon |
| March | Sleeping moon | September | Chrysanthemum moon |
| April | Peony Moon | October | Sweet moon |
| Can | Dragon moon | November | White moon |
| June | Lotus moon | December | Bitter moon |
Full moon names often correspond to seasonal markers, so a harvest moon occurs at the end of the growing season, in September or October, and the cold moon occurs in frosty December. At least, that’s how it works in the northern hemisphere.
In the southern hemisphere, where the seasons change, the harvest moon is in March and the cold moon is in June. According to Earthsky.org, these are common names for full moons south of the equator.
January: Hay Moon, Buck Moon, Thunder Moon, Mead Moon
February (mid-summer): Grain moon, sturgeon moon, red moon, Wyrt moon, corn moon, dog moon, barley moon
March: Moon harvest, corn moon
April: Moon harvest, hunter’s moon, blood moon
Can: Hunter’s moon, beaver moon, frost moon
June: Oak moon, cold moon, long night moon
July: Wolf moon, Old moon, Ice moon
August: Snow moon, storm moon, hunger moon, wolf moon
September: Worm moon, Lent moon, raven moon, sugar moon, chaste moon, sap moon
October: Egg moon, fish moon, seed moon, pink moon, waking moon
November: Corn moon, milk moon, flower moon, hare moon
December: Strawberry moon, honeymoon, pink moon
Just a phase
The moon is a sphere that moves around the Earth once every 27.3 days. It also takes about 27 days for the moon to rotate on its axis. So the moon always shows us the same face; there is not a single “dark side” of the moon. As the moon revolves around the Earth, it is illuminated from different angles by the sun – what we see when we look at it is reflected sunlight. On average, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day, which means it rises sometimes during the day and other times at night.
On a new moon, the moon is between the Earth and the sun, so the side of the moon facing us does not receive direct sunlight and is only illuminated by the faint sunlight reflected from the Earth. .
A few days later, as the moon moves around the Earth, the side we can see gradually becomes more illuminated by direct sunlight. This thin ribbon is called the wax crescent.
A week after the new moon, the moon is 90 degrees from the sun in the sky and is half-illuminated from our perspective – what we call the first quarter because it is about a quarter of the Earth’s circle.
A few days later, the lighting area continues to increase. More than half of the moon’s face appears to be receiving sunlight. This phase is called a waxing gibbous moon.
When the moon has moved 180 degrees from its new lunar position, the sun, earth, and moon form a line. The moon’s disk is as close as possible to being fully illuminated by the sun, this is called the full moon.
Then the moon moves until more than half of its face seems to be receiving sunlight, but the amount decreases. This is the waning gibbous phase.
A few days later, the moon moved another quarter of the Earth’s turn, to the third quarter position. Sunlight is now shining on the other half of the moon’s visible side.
Then the moon enters the waning crescent phase because less than half of its face appears to be receiving sunlight, and the amount decreases.
Finally, the moon returns to its starting position of the new moon. Because the moon’s orbit is not exactly in the same plane as the Earth’s orbit around the sun, they are rarely perfectly aligned. Usually the moon goes above or below the sun from our point of view, but sometimes it goes right in front of the sun, and we get an eclipse of the sun.
Each full moon is calculated to occur at an exact time, which may or may not be near the time the moon rises where you are. So when a full moon rises it usually does so a few hours before or after the actual time it is technically full, but an occasional skywatcher won’t notice the difference. In fact, the moon will often look roughly the same for two consecutive nights surrounding the full moon.
Additional Resources:
[ad_2]
Source link