Your guide to full moons for 2024: Supermoons, solstices, equinoxes and more
The first full moon of 2024 will rise on Jan. 25 at 12:54 p.m. EST. Traditionally known as the Wolf Moon because of a greater chance of hearing wolves howling during that time, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.
Ever since the first humans looked up at the sky and saw the gray, cratered surface of the moon, legends have been fueled by it. There are stories about a mysterious "man in the moon" since some witnesses claimed to have seen a person's face among the craters. Other observers compared the craters to cheese and imagined a whole sphere composed of mouthwatering dairy goods.
Today, we know a lot more about Earth's natural satellite.
Phases of the moon
The moon takes about 30 days to orbit the Earth, which is called a lunar cycle. Each lunar cycle is divided into eight phases based on the moon's position relative to the sun.
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What are solstices and equinoxes?
Astronomers have been observing the solstices and equinoxes for thousands of years, which are a way to signal the beginning of seasons because of Earth's orbit around the sun.
The spring, or vernal, equinox happens around March 19-20 and, like the autumnal equinox, is when the day and night are of equal length. The days will get longer because more light is shed on Earth up until the summer solstice.
The summer solstice happens around June 20-21 and sees the most daytime of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. After that, the days will become shorter until the winter solstice on Dec. 21 or 22, when there’s the least daylight of the year.
Upcoming dates for full moons in 2024, (times in EDT), according to NASA:
What is the moon made of?
The lunar surface is composed of 43% oxygen, 20% silicon, 19% magnesium, 10% iron, 3% calcium, 3% aluminum, 0.42% chromium, 0.18% titanium, and 0.12% manganese by weight.
There are traces of water that may have come from deep beneath the surface and have been found by orbiting spacecraft, according to Space.com.
The moon has a thick, metallic core. Most of its core is made of iron, with a small amount of nickel. Compared with other terrestrial worlds (like Earth), whose cores are closer to 50% of their diameters, the moon's core is fairly modest, at roughly 20% of its diameter.
How big is the moon? Its radius is 1,079.6 miles. The moon's width is less than one-third of Earth's, according to NASA.
What is a supermoon?
When the moon’s orbit brings it closer to Earth than usual, the cosmic combo is called a supermoon. A supermoon occurs when the moon’s orbit is closest to Earth at the same time the moon is full.
This happens when the full moon falls at perigee – its closest point to Earth in its orbit. Perigee is when the moon is 221,519 miles from Earth and appears bigger and brighter than a normal full moon.
When the moon reaches apogee, it’s at its farthest from Earth, a distance of 252,712 miles. If a full moon occurs while the moon is at apogee, it is called a micromoon.
We'll see four supermoons this year. Starting off with a special seasonal blue moon on Aug. 19, which will be the last blue moon until May 20, 2027. The other full supermoons will occur on Sept. 18, Oct. 17 and Nov. 15, according to EarthSky.org.
What is a blood moon?
A blood moon occurs during a total lunar eclipse, which is when the Earth lines up between the moon and the sun. The eclipse blocks direct sunlight to the moon, so the only light it gets passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, which filters out most of the sunlight’s colors, except for red. The atmosphere refracts, or bends, the reddish light toward the moon, which reflects it with a red glow.
The last blood moon occurred in November 2022, and the next one won't occur until March 2025, according to Space.com.
Names of full moons
The etymology behind the word “lunatic,” a synonym for mentally ill, comes from the Latin root of luna, which means moon. People as far back as 400 B.C. noticed that the lunar cycle affected people's mental states.
The gravitational force of the moon causes many visible changes on Earth, affecting the ocean’s tides, animals’ migration habits and humans’ ability to sleep. Full moons have been heralded to have the most influence.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac, a reference book published since the 18th century, named the full moons for those used by Native American, colonial American and European sources, so their meanings derive from characteristics of the Northern Hemisphere.
In Christianity, the full moon that appears before the spring equinox is known as the lenten moon, marking the last full moon of winter. The full moon that appears after the equinox is known as the paschal moon to mark the first full moon of spring. The paschal moon determines the date of Easter every year.
Contributing: Doyle Rice and Ashley R. Williams