blue moon
11:36am Sydney time / 1:36am UTC / 9:36pm (Aug 30) New York time
There are 12 Full Moons
Around the world, people have given names to the full moons through the year.
In America, the native American people's names of Full Moons are used a lot, such as the Sturgeon Moon for August.
Because a lunar month is 29.5 days, 12 lunar months is shorter than a solar year.
Every 2 or 3 years, a 13th full moon will be in the year.
There wasn't a traditional name for it, and it became the Blue Moon
Which of the 13 full moons in the year is the blue moon?
Well, if you think of four seasons in a year, each season should have 3 full moons.
The blue moon is in the season with four full moons.
There are 2 Blue Moons
A seasonal Blue Moon is where there are four full moons in a season..
and the third full moon of that season is named the Blue Moon.
(Seasons are considered the periods between equinoxes and solstices)
The next seasonal blue moon will be next year, August 19, 2024.
And then a different type of rare moon,
a monthly Blue Moon is a second full moon in a calendar month.
Today is a monthly Blue Moon.
The moon doesn't go around the Earth in a perfect circle.
When the moon comes closest to the Earth in its elliptical orbit,
it is called a Super Moon
This August 2023 monthly blue moon is a super moon too.
A super monthly blue moon
or simply, a Super Blue Moon
What about the third meaning?
Sometimes, if the atmospheric conditions are right, the moon can appear to be blue in colour.
In the aftermath of the massive 1884 volcanic eruption of Krakatoa, a tremendous cloud of ash and dust was injected into the stratosphere (5 to 30 miles above the Earth's surface); this aerosol cloud caused both the moon and sun to appear blue from many locations in the Northern Hemisphere for many months after the explosion.
On September 24th, 1950, a 200-mile-wide swath of smoke from a series of smoldering fires in the forests of Northern Alberta in Canada cast an awesome pall over the Great Lakes, parts of New York State and Southern New England. The smoke produced an unusual midday darkness and caused the disk of the sun to shine in eerie hues of pink, blue and even purple!