Blue moon

Blue moon

A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year. It is either the third of four full moons in a season, or a second full moon in a month of the common calendar. The phrase in modern usage has nothing to do with the actual color of the Moon. A visually blue Moon may occur under certain atmospheric conditions.

About Blue moon in brief

Summary Blue moonA blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year. It is either the third of four full moons in a season, or a second full moon in a month of the common calendar. The phrase in modern usage has nothing to do with the actual color of the Moon. A visually blue Moon may occur under certain atmospheric conditions, for instance, if volcanic eruptions or fires release particles in the atmosphere of just the right size to preferentially scatter red light. The term has traditionally, in the Maine Farmer’s Almanac, referred to an \”extra\” full moon, where a year which usually has 12 full moons has 13 instead. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Maine Farmers’ Almanac listed blue moon dates for farmers. These correspond to the third full moon of the quarter of the year when there were four full moon used. Full moon names were those of tropical year, equal in length, as opposed to the astronomical seasons which vary in length because the earth’s orbit is not uniform. To compare, in 1983, the equal seasons began at 1:39am on March 1 and 4:39pm on December 4, while the astronomical season began at 4:30am on September 21 and 10:30pm on September 22.

In 2007, Joe Rao, Skywatching Columnist at Space. com, stated that many years previously he had speculated in Natural History magazine that the \”Blue Moon Rule\” might derive from belewe, which he described as an Old English word meaning ‘to betray’, because the extra full moon \”betrays the usual perception of one full moon per month\”. He then added that his speculation had been ‘innovative’ but ‘completely wrong’ In 2009, a less detailed version of this speculation was mentioned in Farmers’ almanac. The website www. oldenglishtranslator says that the word belæwe is a form of the Old English verb belæwan. The intention may simply be that Jeffrey makes an absurd statement, \”the moon is blue\”, to make the point that priests require laymen to believe in statements even if they are patently false. Owing to the rarity of a blue moon, the term ‘blue moon’ is used colloquially to mean a rare event, as in the phrase ‘once in a bluemoon’