The Really Strange Story Behind Sunday's Blue Moon
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Joe Rao
SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
SPACE.com joe Rao
space.com Skywatching Columnist
space.com – Fri Nov 19, 4:15 pm ETThe full moon of November arrives on Sunday and will bring with it a cosmic addition: It will also be a so-called "blue moon."
"But wait a minute," you might ask. "Isn't a 'blue moon' defined as the second full moon that occurs during a calendar month? Sunday's full moon falls on Nov. 21 and it will be the only full moon in November 2010. So how can it be a 'blue' moon?"
Indeed, November's full moon is blue moon – but only if we follow a rule that's now somewhat obscure.
In fact, the current "two- full moons in one month" rule has superseded an older rule that would allow us to call Sunday's moon "blue." To be clear, the moon does not actually appear a blue color during a blue moon, it has to do with lunar mechanics.
Confused yet?
Well, as the late Paul Harvey used to say — here now, is the rest of the story:
The blue moon rule
Back in the July 1943 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, in a question and answer column written by Lawrence J. Lafleur, there was a reference made to the term "blue moon." [Gallery - Full Moon Fever]
Lafleur cited the unusual term from a copy of the 1937 edition of the now-defunct Maine Farmers' Almanac (NOT to be confused with The Farmers' Almanac of Lewiston, Maine, which is still in business).
On the almanac page for August 1937, the calendrical meaning for the term "blue moon" was given.
That explanation said that the moon "… usually comes full twelve times in a year, three times for each season."
Occasionally, however, there will come a year when there are 13 full moons during a year, not the usual 12. The almanac explanation continued:
"This was considered a very unfortunate circumstance, especially by the monks who had charge of the calendar of thirteen months for that year, and it upset the regular arrangement of church festivals. For this reason thirteen came to be considered an unlucky number."
And with that extra full moon, it also meant that one of the four seasons would contain four full moons instead of the usual three.
"There are seven Blue Moons in a Lunar Cycle of nineteen years," continued the almanac, ending on the comment that, "In olden times the almanac makers had much difficulty calculating the occurrence of the Blue Moon and this uncertainty gave rise to the expression 'Once in a Blue Moon.'"
An unfortunate oversight
But while LaFleur quoted the almanac's account, he made one very important omission: He never specified the date for this particular blue moon.
As it turned out, in 1937, it occurred on Aug. 21. That was the third full moon in the summer of 1937, a summer season that would see a total of four full moons.
Names were assigned to each moon in a season: For example, the first moon of summer was called the early summer moon, the second was the midsummer moon, and the last was called the late summer moon.
But when a particular season has four moons, the third was apparently called a blue moon so that the fourth and final one can continue to be called the late moon.
So where did we get the "two full moons in a month rule" that is so popular today?
A moon mistake
Once again, we must turn to the pages of Sky & Telescope.
This time, on page 3 of the March 1946 issue, James Hugh Pruett wrote an article, "Once in a Blue Moon," in which he made a reference to the term "blue moon" and referenced LaFleur's article from 1943.
But because Pruett had no specific full moon date for 1937 to fall back on, his interpretation of the ruling given by the Maine Farmers' Almanac was highly subjective. Pruett ultimately came to this conclusion:
"Seven times in 19 years there were – and still are – 13 full moons in a year. This gives 11 months with one full moon each and one with two. This second in a month, so I interpret it, was called Blue Moon."
How unfortunate that Pruett did not have a copy of that 1937 almanac at hand, or else he would have almost certainly noticed that his "two full moons in a single month assumption" would have been totally wrong.
For the blue moon date of Aug. 21 was most definitely not the second full moon that month!
Blue moon myth runs wild
Pruett's 1946 explanation was, of course, the wrong interpretation and it might have been completely forgotten were it not for Deborah Byrd who used it on her popular National Public Radio program, "StarDate" on Jan. 31, 1980.
We could almost say that in the aftermath of her radio show, the incorrect blue moon rule "went viral" — or at least the '80s equivalent of it.
Over the next decade, this new blue moon definition started appearing in diverse places, such as the World Almanac for Kids and the board game Trivial Pursuit.
I must confess here, that even I was involved in helping to perpetuate the new version of the blue moon phenomenon. Nearly 30 years ago, in the Dec. 1, 1982 edition of The New York Times, I made reference to it in that newspaper's "New York Day by Day" column.
And by 1988, the new definition started receiving international press coverage.
Today, Pruett's misinterpreted "two full moons in a month rule" is recognized worldwide. Indeed, Sky & Telescope turned a literary lemon into lemonade, proclaiming later that – however unintentional – it changed pop culture and the English language in unexpected ways.
Meanwhile, the original Maine Farmers' Almanac rule had been all but forgotten.
Playing by the (old) rules
Now, let's come back to this Sunday's full moon.
Under the old Almanac rule, this would technically be a blue moon. In the autumn season of 2010, there are four full moons:
* Sept. 23
* Oct. 22
* Nov. 21
* Dec. 21"But wait," you might say. "Dec. 21 is the first day of winter."
And you would be correct, but only if you live north of the equator in the Northern Hemisphere. South of the equator it's the first day of summer.
In 2010, the solstice comes at 6:38 p.m. EST (2338 UT).
But the moon turns full at 3:13 a.m. EST (0813 UT). That's 15 hours and 25 minutes before the solstice occurs. So the Dec. 21 full moon occurs during the waning hours of fall and qualifies as the fourth full moon of the season.
This means that under the original Maine Almanac rule – the one promoted by Lafleur and later misinterpreted by Pruett – the third full moon of the 2010 fall season on Nov. 21 would be a blue moon.
Choose your blue moon
So what Blue Moon definition tickles your fancy? Is it the second full moon in a calendar month, or (as is the case on Sunday) the third full moon in a season with four?
Maybe it's both. The final decision is solely up to you.
Sunday's full moon will look no different than any other full moon. But the moon can change color in certain conditions.
After forest fires or volcanic eruptions, the moon can appear to take on a bluish or even lavender hue. Soot and ash particles, deposited high in the Earth's atmosphere, can sometimes make the moon appear bluish.
In the aftermath of the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991, there were reports of blue moons (and even blue suns) worldwide.
We could even call the next full moon (on Dec. 21) a "red moon," but for a different reason: On that day there will be a total eclipse of the moon and, for a short while, the moon will actually glow with a ruddy reddish hue.
More on that special event in the days to come here at SPACE.com, so stay tuned!
* Gallery - Full Moon Fever
* 10 Coolest New Moon Discoveries
* Full Moon to Dance With Pleiades Star ClusterJoe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y.
* Original Story: The Really Strange Story Behind Sunday's Blue Moon
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I prefer this type of moon
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Now I'm thoroughly confused.
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For my mind and the way I think about this subject Dec.21st is the true Blue Moon. The fourth moon in a quarter is blue. So Says the Cosmos !!
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For my mind and the way I think about this subject Dec.21st is the true Blue Moon. The fourth moon in a quarter is blue. So Says the Cosmos !!
You are correct. There are many things both on the physical and the "higher" level. November's "blue moon" will bring a small amount of what the true "Blue Moon" in December will bring. The true purpose (on the higher level) that a full moon brings is quite spectacular if you posess the ability to see things of the "higher level".
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That is very interesting. I didn't expect to learn cool stuff like this here. :thankyou:
The information here is so diverse. I like it. :urock: Leatherbear. Now back to the SEX :spank2: :anal: :bj2:
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the nov moon was very surreal.
I'm looking forward to dec,21st moon now.
and maybe find a furry bear to enjoy some hot sweaty sex under it.
:drool: -
Blue Moon
31 December 2009 Blue Moon with partial lunar eclipse
A blue moon can refer to the third full moon in a season with four full moons.[1] Most years have twelve full moons that occur approximately monthly. In addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains roughly eleven days more than the lunar year of 12 lunations. The extra days accumulate, so every two or three years (7 times in the 19-year Metonic cycle), there is an extra full moon. Lunisolar calendars have rules about when to insert such an intercalary of embolismic ("leap") month, and what name it is given; e.g. in the Hebrew calendar the month Adar is duplicated. The term "blue moon" comes from folklore. Different traditions and conventions place the extra "blue" full moon at different times in the year.
* In calculating the dates for Lent and Easter, the Clergy identify the Lent Moon. It is thought that historically when the moon's timing was too early, they named an earlier moon as a "betrayer moon" (belewe moon), thus the Lent moon came at its expected time.[2]
* Folklore gave each moon a name according to its time of year. A moon that came too early had no folk name, and was called a blue moon, retaining the correct seasonal timings for future moons.
* The Farmers' Almanac defined blue moon as an extra full moon that occurred in a season; one season was normally three full moons. If a season had four full moons, then the third full moon was named a blue moon.
* Recent popular usage defined a blue moon as the second full moon in a calendar month, stemming from an interpretation error made in 1946 that was discovered in 1999.[1] For example, December 31, 2009 was a blue moon according to this usage.A "blue moon" is also used colloquially to mean "a rare event", reflected in the phrase "once in a blue moon".[3]
Contents* 1 Early English and Christian usage
* 2 Visibly blue moon
* 3 Farmers' Almanac blue moons
o 3.1 Sky and Telescope calendar misinterpretation
* 4 Blue moons between 2009 and 2016
o 4.1 Seasonal
o 4.2 Calendar
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External linksEarly English and Christian usage
The earliest recorded English usage of the term "blue moon" was in a 1528 pamphlet violently attacking the English clergy,[4] entitled "Rede Me and Be Not Wrothe" ("Read me and be not angry"; or possibly "Counsel Me and Be Not Angry" [5]): "If they say the moon is belewe / We must believe that it is true" [If they say the moon is blue, we must believe that it is true].
Another interpretation uses another Middle English meaning of belewe, which (besides "blue") can mean "betray".[2] By the 16th century, before the Gregorian calendar reform, the medieval computus was out of sync with the actual seasons and the moon, and occasionally spring would have begun and a full moon passed a month before the computus put the first spring moon.[6][7] Thus, the clergy needed to tell the people whether the full moon was the Easter moon or a false one, which they may have called a "betrayer moon" (belewe moon) after which people would have had to continue fasting for another month in accordance with the season of Lent.[8]
Modern interpretation of the term relates "blue moon" to absurdities and impossibilities,.[9]
Visibly blue moonThe most literal meaning of blue moon is when the moon (not necessarily a full moon) appears to a casual observer to be unusually bluish, which is a rare event. The effect can be caused by smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere, as has happened after forest fires in Sweden and Canada in 1950 and 1951,[10] and after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, which caused the moon to appear blue for nearly two years. Other less potent volcanos have also turned the moon blue. People saw blue moons in 1983 after the eruption of the El Chichon volcano in Mexico, and there are reports of blue moons caused by Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991.[11]
On September 23, 1950, several muskeg fires that had been smoldering for several years in Alberta, Canada suddenly blew up into major—and very smoky—fires. Winds carried the smoke eastward and southward with unusual speed, and the conditions of the fire produced large quantities of oily droplets of just the right size (about 1 micrometre in diameter) to scatter red and yellow light. Wherever the smoke cleared enough so that the sun was visible, it was lavender or blue. Ontario, Canada and much of the east coast of the U.S. were affected by the following day, and two days later, observers in England reported an indigo sun in smoke-dimmed skies, followed by an equally blue moon that evening.[11]
The key to a blue moon is having lots of particles slightly wider than the wavelength of red light (0.7 micrometre)–and no other sizes present. This is rare, but volcanoes sometimes produce such clouds, as do forest fires. Ash and dust clouds thrown into the atmosphere by fires and storms usually contain a mixture of particles with a wide range of sizes, with most smaller than 1 micrometre, and they tend to scatter blue light. This kind of cloud makes the moon turn red; thus red moons are far more common than blue moons.[12]
Farmers' Almanac blue moonsIn the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Maine Farmers' Almanac listed blue moon dates for farmers. These correspond to the third full moon in a quarter of the year when there were four full moons (normally a quarter year has three full moons). Names are given to each moon in a season: For example, the first moon of summer is called the early summer moon, the second is called the midsummer moon, and the last is called the late summer moon. When a season has four moons the third is called the blue moon so that the last can continue to be called the late moon.
The division of the year into quarters starts with the nominal vernal equinox on or around March 21.[13] This is close to the astronomical season but follows the Christian computus used for calculations of Easter, which places the equinox at a fixed date in the (Gregorian) calendar.
Some[weasel words] naming conventions[citation needed] keep the moon's seasonal name for its entire cycle, from its appearance as a new moon through the full moon to the next new moon. In this convention a blue moon starts with a new moon and continues until the next new moon starts the late season moon.
Sky and Telescope calendar misinterpretationThe March 1946 Sky and Telescope article "Once in a Blue Moon" by James Hugh Pruett misinterpreted the 1937 Maine Farmers' Almanac. "Seven times in 19 years there were — and still are — 13 full moons in a year. This gives 11 months with one full moon each and one with two. This second in a month, so I interpret it, was called Blue Moon." Widespread adoption of the definition of a "blue moon" as the second full moon in a month followed its use on the popular radio program StarDate on January 31, 1980.[1]
Blue moons between 2009 and 2016The following blue moons occur between 2009 and 2016. These dates use UTC as the timezone; months vary with different timezones.
SeasonalUsing the Farmers' Almanac definition of blue moon (meaning the third full moon in a season of four full moons), blue moons occur
* November 21, 2010
* August 21, 2013
* May 21, 2016Calendar
Note that, unlike the astronomical seasonal definition, these dates are dependent on the Gregorian calendar and time zones.
Two full moons in one month:[14]
* 2009: December 2, December 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), January 30, only in time zones east of UTC+04:30.
* 2010: March 1, March 30, only in time zones east of UTC+07.
* 2012: August 2, August 31
* 2015: July 2, July 31The next time New Year's Eve falls on a Blue Moon (as occurred on 2009 December 31) is after one Metonic cycle, in 2028. At that time there will be a total lunar eclipse.
See also* Black moon
* Wet moonReferences
* Oxford English Dictionary
1. ^ a b c Sinnott, Roger W., Donald W. Olson, and Richard Tresch Fienberg (May 1999). "What's a Blue Moon?". Sky & Telescope. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/moon/3304131.html?showAll=y&c=y. Retrieved 2008-02-09. "The trendy definition of "blue Moon" as the second full Moon in a month is a mistake."
2. ^ a b "What is a "Blue Moon"?". Farmers' Almanac. http://www.farmersalmanac.com/what-is-a-blue-moon.
3. ^ Smith, Bridie (28 December 2009). Once in a Blue Moon. The Age. Retrieved on 3 March 2010.
4. ^ Koelbing, Arthur, Ph.D. (1907–21). "Barclay and Skelton: German influence on English literature". The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume III. Bartleby.com. http://www.bartleby.com/213/0414.html.
5. ^ from the old English "rede" [vb.] to advise, to warn, or "rede"[n.] a warning, an injunction[citation needed])
6. ^ http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-commissions/faith-and-order-commission/i-unity-the-church-and-its-mission/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-date-of-easter.html
7. ^ http://astro.nmsu.edu/~lhuber/leaphist.html
8. ^ http://www.farmersalmanac.com/astronomy/2009/08/24/what-is-a-blue-moon/
9. ^ Hiscock, Philip (June 19, 2006). "Folklore of the "Blue Moon"". International Planetarium Society. http://www.ips-planetarium.org/planetarian/articles/folkloreBlueMoon.html.
10. ^ Minnaert, M: "De natuurkunde van 't vrije veld" 5th edition Thieme 1974, part I "Licht en kleur in het landschap" par.187 ; ISBN 90-03-90844-3 (out of print); also see ISBN 0-387-97935-2
11. ^ a b NASA http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/07jul_bluemoon.htm
12. ^ Bowling, S. A. (1988). Blue moons and lavender suns. Alaska Science Forum, Article #861 http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF8/861.html
13. ^ Clarke, Kevin (1999). "on blue moons". InconstantMoon.com. http://www.inconstantmoon.com/cyc_blue.htm.
14. ^ Giesen, Jurgen. "Blue Moon". Physik und Astromonie. http://jgiesen.de/moon/BlueMoon/. Retrieved 2009-01-17.External links
* What is a Blue Moon? by Michael Myers
* Folklore of the Blue Moon by Philip Hiscock
* What's a Blue Moon? by Donald W. Olson, Richard T. Fienberg, and Roger W. Sinnott – Sky & Telescope
* Once in a Blue Moon – What is a blue moon? by Ann-Marie Imbornoni
* Topical Words – Blue Moon
* Blue Moon: Folklore or fakelore? by Pip Wilson
* A Blue Moon Calculator by David Harper
* On Blue Moons by Kevin Clarke
* Article arguing that a blue moon is the 3rd full moon in a season of 4 full moons, not the 2nd in a month
* Blue Moon by Irineu Gomes Varella (Portuguese)
* 'Blue moon' coming to our skies soon
* Blue Moon – what's the real definition? by David Harper and Lynne Marie Stockman
* blog on lunar calendars and computing
