A really special event is happening on the night of August 30. Look up in the sky because there will be a super bright full moon. During the day, it’s Raksha Bandhan, a special celebration. The moon will be at its brightest at 9:36 pm ET or 7:06 am IST. Oddly, it’s called a “blue moon,” but it won’t actually be blue; it will look orange.
Now, let’s answer a common question: What is a blue moon, and how often do we see it? There are two kinds of blue moons, but they have nothing to do with color.
1. A seasonal blue moon is the third full moon in a season with four full moons.
2. A monthly blue moon is the second full moon in one calendar month, even though it’s not blue.
Many people now accept the monthly blue moon as the real deal. But here’s the thing: it takes the moon about 29.5 days to go through its phases, so there are about 12 full moons in a year. However, a year has around 366 days, so we get an extra full moon about every two and a half years. We call this bonus full moon a “blue moon” because it doesn’t fit the regular naming pattern.
So, how often do blue moons happen? They’re pretty rare. Normally, we get a full moon about every 29 days, but sometimes a month has two full moons. Blue moons usually pop up every two and a half years. There was a special year in 2018 when we had two blue moons just two months apart, one of them during a lunar eclipse! About every 10 years, we get a blue moon and a supermoon on the same night. The next time will be in January and March 2037, which is 14 years from now.
Very good details