May brought double trouble. Well. Not trouble. Two Full Moons. The first one arrived on May 1. They called it the Flower Moon. Pretty standard name. The second one lands on May 31.
Wait for it.
Here is where things get interesting. That second moon is a Blue Moon.
No, it isn’t blue. Don’t check your UV filters. The color comes from rarity, not chemistry. When two Full Moons squeeze into a single calendar month, the second one wears the “Blue Moon” title. The lunar cycle is just shy of 30 days. Timing glitches happen. You get one moon at the start of the month, another at the finish line. Rare, but not magic. NASA says these occur every few years.
There’s another type. The seasonal Blue Moon. That’s when a season sports four Full Moons instead of three. A crowded schedule for the night sky.
May 31 is the day. Sunday. Peak visibility hits around 4:45 a.m. Eastern Time. Catch it if you’re up. Most of us won’t be.
Why “Blue”? It’s likely a nod to the saying. People who can catch blue moons can also catch black cats. Impossibility stacking on impossibility.
What’s next?
June 29 holds the next Full Moon. Mark it. Then forget it. The cycle rolls on.
The Moon doesn’t change shape. Not really. It’s a solid rock. What changes is the angle. As the Moon orbits Earth, sunlight hits it differently from our vantage point. We always see the same face, but the lighting shifts. A cycle takes roughly 29 and a half days28-29.5. Roughly.
“The Moon goes through eight distinct phases.”
It’s a slow dance between sun, moon, and Earth.
Here’s the lineup:
- New Moon : Dark. Hidden. Between Earth and sun. Nothing to see.
- Waxing Crescent : A sliver appears. On the right. Growing.
- First Quarter : Half-lit. Right side bright. Looks like a classic crescent but wider.
- Waxing Gibbous : Almost full. Bloating toward completion.
- Full Moon : Bright. Complete. The showpiece.
- Waning Gibbous : Starting to fade. Right side loses light.
- Third Quarter : Half-lit again. Left side now. Last quarter.
- Waning Crescent : A thin remnant on the left. Then darkness again.
Then it starts over. New Moon. Darkness.
And back to the cycle.
It never stops spinning.
We keep watching anyway.
