"Once in a Blue Moon"~ Rhythm
We all must have heard that the Blue moon occurred this Halloween. You may have observed that the moon you saw was not blue at all. Then why is it called ‘Blue Moon’? The answers to your questions are here.
What's a 'Blue Moon'?
The moon’s cycle is 29.5 days, while months can be as long as 31 days or a short as 28. That misalignment between the calendar and the moon’s schedule causes the doubling-up.
This second full moon in a month of the common calendar is called Blue Moon.
The ‘Blue Moon’ reference is also applied to the third full moon in a season with four full moons.
WHY IS IT CALLED “BLUE” MOON?
The moon always remains the same color as it always is. The “blue” may come from the Old English word “belewe,” which means “betray.”
It is the “extra” full moon because a year which has 12 full moons gets 13 instead.
Perhaps centuries ago, this was viewed as the moon “betraying” mankind or tricking people with a second full one.
The moon’s cycle is 29.5 days, while months can be as long as 31 days or a short as 28. That misalignment between the calendar and the moon’s schedule causes the doubling-up.
Because of this, the phrase “Once in a Blue Moon” is used to depict rare events.
SECRET OF THE "BLUE MOON"
Blue-colored moons in photos are usually made using special blue camera filters or in a post-processing program such as PhotoShop.
It doesn’t mean that the moon is never blue-colored.
The blue-colored moons are rare but not necessarily full. Sometimes you can even see a blue-colored moon on a normal day.
The key to a blue moon is having many particles slightly wider than the wavelength of red light (0.7 micrometers)—and no other sizes present. It is rare, but volcanoes sometimes produce such clouds, as do forest fires. Ash and dust clouds threw into the atmosphere by fires and storms usually contain a mixture of particles with a wide range of sizes, with most smaller than 1 micrometer, and they tend to scatter blue light.
when is the next one?
Unlike the astronomical seasonal definition, these dates are dependent on the Gregorian calendar and time zones.
Two full moons in one month (the second of which is a “blue moon”): A blue moon can occur in January and the following March if there is no full moon at all in February, as is the case in the years 1999, 2018, and 2037.
- 2009: December 2 and 31 (partial lunar eclipse visible in some parts of the world), only in time zones west of UTC+05
- 2010: January 1 (partial lunar eclipse) and 30, only in time zones east of UTC+04:30
- 2010: March 1 and 30, only in time zones east of and including UTC+07
- 2012: August 2 and 31, only in time zones west of and including UTC+10
- 2012: September 1 and 30, only in time zones east of and including UTC+10:30
- 2015: July 2 and 31
- 2018: January 2 and 31, only in time zones west of and including UTC+11
- 2018: March 2 and 31, only in time zones west of and including UTC+12
- 2020: October 1 and 31, only in time zones west of and including UTC+10
- 2020: November 1 and 30, only in time zones east of and including UTC+9
- 2023: August 1 and 31,
- 2026: May 1 and 31
- 2028: December 2 and 31
- 2031: September 1 and 30
- 2034: July 1 and 31
- 2037: January 2 and 31, plus March 2 and 31
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