Published on Aug. 27, 2023, 11:00 AM
We haven’t seen a Full Moon like this one in over 27 years, and we won’t see another one until the 22nd century!
2023 has a “bonus” Full Moon and it rises on the night of August 30-31.
In any given calendar year, there are typically 12 Full Moons — one occurring in each month. Every once in awhile, though, due to the exact timing of when the Full Moons occur, we get an extra one. That means we have a total of 13 Full Moons for the year, one during each of 11 months, and one month with two.
Since we only have 12 popular names for the Full Moons, the extra one goes nameless. Thus we call it a Blue Moon.
The 13 Full Moons of 2023, including their popular names and any other notable facts — supermoons, micromoons, lunar eclipses, etc. Credit: Scott Sutherland/NASA GSFC, with data from Fred Espenak.
Blue Moons aren’t very rare on their own. Typically, they happen about once every two-and-a-half to three years. The last one was the Halloween Blue Moon on October 31, 2020. However, once in awhile there’s a special year when we get two, like in 2018, when there were Blue Moons on January 31 and March 31 (with no Full Moon in February that year). The next Blue Moon will be on May 31, 2026, although, there is a different kind of Blue Moon before then. Read on to learn more.
This screenshot from a NASA video reveals the rarity of a Halloween Blue Moon. Credit: Science at NASA
Now, ‘super’ Blue Moons are a little more uncommon.
A supermoon occurs when the Moon turns full at the same time that it is near its closest distance to Earth along its elliptical orbit. Thus, being closer to us, supermoons appear bigger and brighter in the sky. Since we see between two and five supermoons each year, it doesn’t take too long for one to match up with the second Full Moon in a calendar month. The last blue supermoon was a little over 5 years ago, on January 31, 2018, which was also a total lunar eclipse (the Super Blue Blood Moon). The next one doesn’t occur until January 31, 2037, which — strangely enough — will be another Super Blue Blood Moon!
