The full moon shows its face on Earth about once a month. Well, a little.
Most of the time, the full moon is not perfectly full. We always see the same side of the moon, but part of it is in the shade. Only when the moon, Earth and sun are perfectly aligned, the moon is 100% full and this alignment produces a lunar eclipse.
And sometimes, once on the blue moon, the moon fills up twice a month (or four times a season, whichever definition you prefer).
The next full moon will occur during the day Monday, April 26 at 11:31 PM EDT (03:31 UTC, April 27), but the moon will appear full the night before and after its peak until chance. The full moon of April, which will be one of this year’s supermoons, is sometimes known as the Pink Moon, although it has many other nicknames from different cultures.
Related: Night sky, April 2021: what can you see this month
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If you know a young man who doesn’t get enough moonlight, he’ll be delighted with the views across the Orion GoScope II. This small telescope, which reveals craters and seas nearby, includes a suitcase and a map of the moon.
When is the Full Moon? Calendar dates for 2021
According to NASA, full moons will occur in 2021:
| Data | First name | Eastern US time | UTC |
| January 28th | Moon Wolf | 14:16 h | 19:16 |
| February 27th | Snow moon | 3:17 p.m. | 8:17 |
| March 28th | Worm moon | 14:48 | 18:48 |
| April 26th | Pink moon | 11:31 p.m. | 3:31 (April 27) |
| May 26 | Moon Flower | 7:14 h | 11:14 |
| June 24 | Strawberry moon | 14:40 h | 18:40 |
| July 23rd | Buck Moon | 10:37 h | 2:37 (24 July) |
| August 22nd | Sturgeon moon | 8:02 p.m. | 12:02 |
| September 20th | Corn moon | 7:55 p.m. | 23:55 |
| October 20th | Harvest Moon | 10:57 h | 14:57 |
| November 19th | Beaver Moon | 3:58 am | 8:58 |
| December 18th | Cold moon | 23:36 h | 4:36 (December 19) |
The names of the full moon of 2021 were explained
Many cultures have given different names to the full moon of each month. The names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. He Almanac of farmers lists several names commonly used in the United States. There are some variations in the names of the moons, but they were generally used among the Algonquin tribes from New England in the 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 more than 50 native 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 | First name | Month | First name |
| Gener | Holiday moon | July | Hungry Ghost Moon |
| February | Moon sprouting | August | Harvest Moon |
| March | Sleeping moon | September | Chrysanthemum moon |
| April | Peony moon | October | Moon kindly |
| May | Dragon Moon | of November | White Moon |
| June | Lotus moon | December | Bitter moon |
Full moon names usually 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 icy December. At least that’s how it works in the northern hemisphere.
In the southern hemisphere, where the seasons change, the harvest moon occurs in March and the cold moon 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: Harvest Moon, Corn Moon
April: Harvest moon, hunter moon, blood moon
May: Hunter 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, Crow Moon, Sugar Moon, Chaste Moon, Sap Moon
October: Egg moon, fish moon, seed moon, pink moon, awake moon
November: Corn of moon, milk of milk, moon of flowers, moon of hare
December: Strawberry moon, honeymoon, rose moon
The phases of the moon were counted with dates
The moon is a sphere that travels once around the Earth every 27.3 days. It also takes about 27 days for the moon to rotate on its axis. Therefore, the moon always shows us the same face; there is no “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 the moon is the reflected sunlight. On average, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day, which means that it sometimes rises in daylight and others at night.
In the 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 sunlight reflected from the Earth. .
A few days later, as the moon moves around the Earth, the side we can see gradually illuminates with direct sunlight. This thin splinter is called a crescent moon.
One week after the new moon, the moon is 90 degrees away from the sun in the sky and is half lit from our point of view, what we call the first quarter because it is about a quarter of the way around the moon. Earth.
A few days later, the lighting area continues to increase. It appears that more than half of the face of the moon receives sunlight. This phase is called the crescent moon.
When the moon has moved 180 degrees from its new moon position, the sun, Earth, and moon form a line. The disk of the moon is as close as possible to being fully illuminated by the sun, so it is called a full moon.
Then the moon moves until more than half of its face appears to receive sunlight, but the amount decreases. This is the waning phase.
Days later, the moon has shifted a quarter more around the Earth, to the position of the third quarter. Sunlight now shines on the other half of the visible face of the moon.
The moon then goes into the waning crescent phase, as it appears that half of its face receives sunlight and the amount decreases.
Finally, the moon returns to the initial 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. Normally, the moon passes above or below the sun from our point of view, but from time to time it passes right in front of the sun and we get a solar eclipse.
It is estimated that each full moon occurs at an exact time, which may or may not be close to the time the moon comes out where it is. Therefore, when a full moon comes out, it usually does so a few hours before or after the actual time when it is technically full, but a casual sky observer will not notice the difference. In fact, the moon will often look the same on two consecutive nights surrounding the full moon.
Lunar eclipse of 2021
Lunar eclipses are inextricably linked to the full moon.
When the moon is in full phase, it is passing behind the Earth relative to the sun and can pass through the shadow of the Earth, creating a lunar eclipse. When the moon is completely within the shadow of the Earth, we see a total lunar eclipse. At other times, the moon only partially passes through the Earth’s shadow in what is known as a partial or even penumbral lunar eclipse (when the moon only borders the outermost region of the Earth’s shadow). ).
In 2021 there will be two lunar eclipses. There will be a total lunar eclipse on May 26 and a partial lunar eclipse on November 19.
The total lunar eclipse on May 26 will only be visible in some areas of East Asia, Australia, the Pacific Ocean and North and South America. It will start at 4.47 am EDT (0847 GMT) and end at 9:49 am EDT (1349 GMT).
The November 19 partial lunar eclipse will be visible in the hours leading up to North and South America, northern Europe, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific Ocean. It will start at 1:02 h EST (0602 GMT) and end at 7:03 h EST (1203 GMT).
Because the moon’s orbit around the Earth is tilted, it doesn’t align with the Earth’s shadow every month and we don’t have any lunar eclipses every month.
Solar eclipses of 2021
When the moon is in its “new” phase, it passes between the Earth and the Sun, so that the side facing the Earth appears dark.
From time to time, the moon’s orbit aligns with the sun so that the moon can block some or all of the sun, as seen from Earth. When the moon completely blocks the sun’s disk, we see a total solar eclipse during the day, which can be a really impressive place. Other times, the moon can only partially block the sun in a partial solar eclipse.
The moon can even create a “ring of fire” solar eclipse when it passes directly in front of the sun, but it is at a point in its orbit that is too far from Earth to completely cover the sun’s disk. This leaves a ring, or “ring”, around the moon to create what is called an annular solar eclipse.
In 2021 there will be two solar eclipses. On June 10, 2021, an annular “ring of fire” eclipse will occur. It can be seen as a partial eclipse from regions of North America, Europe and Asia, with the “ring of fire”. “effect visible from northern Canada, Greenland and Russia.
The total solar eclipse of 2021 will occur on December 4th. It will only be fully visible from Antarctica, with partial views visible from South Africa and the South Atlantic.