March’s full moon will rise on March 7, coinciding with several holidays and festivals around the world.
The Farmer’s Almanac calls March’s full moon the Worm Moon, after the worms that start to come to the surface after the ground begins to thaw in the Northern hemisphere. Many Anishinaabeg, or Ojibwe, Indigenous people of the Great Lakes region knew it as Onaabidin Giizis, or the Snow-Crust Moon, according to the Center for Native American Studies.
As summer slips into autumn and nights begin to grow longer, the final supermoon of the year will make a big splash Thursday (Aug.t 11).
Nicknamed the “Sturgeon Moon,” August’s full moon peaks around 9:36 p.m. EDT on Thursday (0136 a.m. GMT on Friday), – although the moon will appear bright and full on Wednesday and Friday night (Aug. 10 and Aug. 12) as well.
Most publications consider this a supermoon, meaning the full moon occurs while the moon is nearest its closest point to Earth, also known as perigee, during the current orbit. The Sturgeon Moon will appear within 90% of perigee, making it a supermoon by most scientific definitions. (Some publications put specific distance or time constraints on supermoons, meaning the Sturgeon Moon may not fit the bill for every publication.) Supermoons can appear larger and up to 16% brighter in the sky than the average full moon, according to timeanddate.com.
If you are waiting in wings and have a plan to join the cozy club in heaven, now is apparently a good time. Next week signifies the start of the infamous Tetrad that will see four blood-red lunar eclipses followed by six full moons.
It is a cycle that has just started and is slated to end in September 2015. This cosmological event is so rare that NASA confirms it has happened only three times in the last 500 years.
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