August 31, 2012
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Day Fourteen: Blue Moon!
http://www.newsoxy.com/science/blue-moon-august-31-86029.html
The Blue Moon tale is not actually a myth, because on August 31, you will be able to look up at the night sky and see one. Your next opportunity won’t be until 2015 – in three years – when the next term of a second full moon will occur in a single month.
However, don’t expect some color in the sky. The event means nothing about color, but to rarity. They are defined as either the fourth full moon in a season, or, more recently, as the second full moon in a month. In fact, it’s the second definition that covers August’s blue moon; the month’s first full moon was on Aug. 1.
Blue moons happen because our calendar months don’t precisely sync with the moon’s orbit. It takes the
moon 29.5 days to wax and wane from full to new to full again. With the exception of February, months are longer than that, meaning that once in a while the timing works out so there are two full moons in one month.
They are best known from the phrase “once in a blue moon,” meant to refer to something extremely rare. Two of them in a month aren’t all that unusual, however; they occur 2.7 years apart on average, though not with great regularity. The last one occurred on Dec. 31, 2009. This blue moon will reach its full phase at 9:58 a.m. EST Friday.
Day and night sides of Earth at instant of August 31 full moon
Day and night sides of Earth at the instant of 2012 August 31 full moon
(13:58 Universal Time. Credit: Earth and Moon VieweraNNa’S NoTe: Exactly halfway thru Elul – the period of repentance, we have a rare and beautiful symbol given by Ha’Shem. The moon represents the Lord’s Witnesses on Earth in Biblical Astronomy. So it’s poignant that He has set this in the sky smack in the middle of the final period before the close of the ‘summer’. The time is ripe for plucking!
Comments (1)
The blue moon was originally named the belewe moon. Belewe means false or betrayer or not the real full moon. Prior to our present calendar, the month was determined by the moon.
If I recall correctly, the church named it the belewe moon because it caused problems with the holy seasons.