August is proving to be one of the most prolific months for astronomical phenomena this year. After the Sturgeon supermoon (August 1) and the Perseid meteor shower (August 13), fans of looking beyond the sky are preparing for a new phenomenon: the Blue Moon, which will appear during the early hours of August 31.
Now, although the name of this supermoon can make us imagine that it will be possible to see a glow in the blue sky or something similar in the middle of the night, the truth is that it will not be like that. Although sometimes we can see a certain blue color due to the presence of dust, smoke and ash in the atmosphere (only if there have been recent volcanic eruptions or serious forest fires); its name refers simply to the place it occupies in the month, the second, behind another supermoon.
The reason, since the Moon takes 29.5 days to complete its cycle from full to new and back again, there is usually only one per month. Every once in a while, there are two in a month, hence the phrase ‘once in a blue moon’.”
Specifically, according to NASA, this is a phenomenon that occurs once every three years, so the next time we have the opportunity to see two supermoons in the same month will be in 2026.
If we recover a 2020 lunar calendar, we can verify that the same phenomenon was repeated, since in the month of October there were two full moons, one at the beginning of the month and another at the end, specifically on days 1 and 31. In the years in which a blue Moon occurs we have 13 full moons instead of 12.
This blue Moon is also a supermoon, the third supermoon of the year and also the most prominent. Occurring very close to lunar perigee, the time when the Moon is closest in its orbit to Earth, it will appear larger and brighter than usual.
In addition, this extra full Moon this summer has the particularity that it occurs at the beginning of its descending curve in the northern hemisphere (and ascending in the southern hemisphere), coinciding with a flower period and causing the sap of the plants to push harder upwards. The periods of the ascending moon are good for grafting and for harvesting juicier fruits.
According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, this won’t be the last time we see a supermoon. There are still four left, one for each month that remains in 2023.
