The full moon shows its face to the Earth about once a month. A kind of.
Most of the time, the full moon is not perfectly full. We always see the same part of the moon, but part of it is in the shadows. Only when the moon, Earth and sun are perfectly aligned, the moon is 100% full and this alignment produces a lunar eclipse.
And sometimes – once in a blue month – the moon is full twice a month (or four times a season, depending on your definition).
The next full moon will take place on Monday, 26 April at 23:31 EDT (03:31 UTC, 27 April), but the moon will appear full one night before and after its peak towards the casual stargazer. The full moon of April, which will be one of this year’s superman, is sometimes known as the Pink Moon, although it has many other nicknames from different cultures.
Related: Night sky, April 2021: What you can see this month
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When is the full moon? Calendar data for 2021
This is when the full months will take place in 2021, according to NASA:
| Date | Name | Eastern Time to USA | UTC |
| January 28th | Wolf’s Moon | 14:16 | 19:16 |
| February 27 | Snow month | 3:17 am | 8:17 |
| March 28 | Worm Moon | 14:48 | 18:48 |
| April 26 | The pink moon | 23:31 | 3:31 (April 27) |
| May 26 | The moon with flowers | 7:14 in the morning | 11:14 |
| June 24 | Strawberry moon | 14:40 | 18:40 |
| July 23 | Buck Moon | 10:37 in the morning | 2:37 (24 July) |
| August 22nd | Sturgeon’s Moon | 8:02 | 12:02 |
| September 20th | Corn moon | 7:55 in the morning | 23:55 |
| October 20 | Harvest month | 10:57 | 14:57 |
| November 19th | Beaver moon | 3:58 am | 8:58 |
| December 18th | Cold moon | 23:36 | 4:36 (19 December) |
The names of the full moon in 2021 have been explained
Many cultures have given distinct names to the full moon of each month. The names were applied to the entire month in which each took place. The farmer’s almanac lists several names that are commonly used in the United States. There are some variations in the name of the moon, but generally the same were used among the Algonquin tribes of New England, westward, to Lake Superior. European settlers followed their own customs and created some of their own names.
Other Native Americans had different names. In the book “This Day in North American Indian History” (Da Capo Press, 2002), author Phil Konstantin lists more than 50 native peoples and their names for the full months. He also lists them on his website, AmericanIndian.net.
Amateur astronomer Keith Cooley has a short list of moon names from other cultures, including Chinese and Celtic, on his website. E.g,
Name of the Chinese month:
| Month | Name | Month | Name |
| January | Holiday month | July | Hungry Ghost Moon |
| February | The flourishing moon | August | Harvest month |
| March | Moon Sleepy | September | Chrysanthemum moon |
| April | Peony Moon | October | Hello moon |
| May | Dragon Moon | November | Luna Alba |
| June | Lotus Moon | December | The bitter moon |
The full moon names often correspond to seasonal markers, so a harvest month appears at the end of the growing season, in September or October, and the cold month appears in frosty December. At least that’s how it works in the northern hemisphere.
In the southern hemisphere, where the seasons change, the harvest month takes place in March and the cold month in June. According to Earthsky.org, these are common names for the full months south of the equator.
January: Hay Moon, Buck Moon, Thunder Moon, Mead Moon
February (mid-summer): Cereal Moon, Sturgeon Moon, Red Moon, Wyrt Moon, Corn Moon, Dog Moon, Barley Moon
March: Harvest month, Corn month
April: Harvest month, Hunter’s month, Blood month
May: Hunter’s Moon, Beaver Moon, Frost Moon
June: Oak moon, Cold moon, Long night moon
July: Wolf Moon, Old Moon, Ice Moon
August: The snowy moon, the stormy moon, the hungry moon, the wolf moon
September: Worm Moon, Lent Moon, Crow Moon, Sugar Moon, Chaste Moon, Sap Moon
October: Egg Moon, Fish Moon, Seed Moon, Pink Moon, Wake Moon
November: Corn moon, Milk moon, Flower moon, Rabbit moon
December: Strawberry moon, honeymoon, rose moon
The phases of the month explained with data
The moon is a sphere that travels around the Earth once every 27.3 days. It also takes about 27 days for the moon to rotate on its axis. So the moon always shows us the same face; there is not a single “dark side” of the moon. As the moon revolves around the Earth, it is illuminated by the sun from different angles – what we see when we look at the moon is the reflected sunlight. On average, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day, which means that it sometimes rises during the day and sometimes at night.
At the new moon, the moon is between the Earth and the sun, so the part of the moon facing us does not receive direct sunlight and is illuminated only by the faint sunlight reflected by the Earth.
A few days later, as the moon moves around the Earth, the side we can see gradually becomes brighter from direct sunlight. This thin strand is called a crescent crescent.
One week after the new moon, the moon is 90 degrees away from the sun in the sky and is half-lit from our point of view – what we call the first quarter, because it is about a quarter around the Earth.
A few days later, the lighting area continues to grow. More than half of the moon’s face appears to be sunlight. This phase is called the rising gibbous moon.
When the moon moved 180 degrees from its new moon position, the sun, earth, and moon formed a line. The moon’s disk is as close as possible to being completely illuminated by the sun, so this is called a full moon.
Then the moon moves until more than half of its face appears to receive sunlight, but the amount decreases. This is the declining gibbous phase.
A few days later, the moon moved another quarter around the Earth, in the position of the third quarter. The sunlight now shines on the other half of the visible face of the moon.
Then the moon goes into the waning crescent phase, as less than half of its face appears to become sunlight, and the amount decreases.
Finally, the moon returns to the starting position of the new moon. Because the moon’s orbit is not exactly in the same plane as the Earth’s orbit around the sun, they are rarely perfectly aligned. Usually, the moon passes above or below the sun from our point of view, but occasionally it passes right in front of the sun and we get a solar eclipse.
Each full moon is calculated to occur at an exact time, which may or may not be close to when the moon rises where you are. So when a full moon rises, it usually does so a few hours before or after the actual time when it is technically full, but a casual skywatcher will not notice the difference. In fact, the moon will often look about the same on two consecutive nights surrounding the full moon.
Lunar eclipses of 2021
Lunar eclipses are inextricably linked to the full moon.
When the moon is in its full phase, it passes behind the Earth with respect for the sun and can pass through the shadow of the Earth, creating an eclipse of the Moon. When the moon is fully in the shadow of the Earth, we see a total lunar eclipse. At other times, the moon passes only partially through the shadow of the Earth in what is known as a partial or even penumbral lunar eclipse (when the moon revolves only through the outer region of the Earth’s shadow).
In 2021, there will be two lunar eclipses. A total lunar eclipse will occur on May 26, and a partial lunar eclipse will occur on November 19.
The total lunar eclipse on May 26 will only be visible in parts of East Asia, Australia, the Pacific Ocean and North and South America. It will start at 4:47 am EDT (0847 GMT) and end at 9:49 am EDT (1349 GMT).
The partial lunar eclipse of November 19 will be visible in the hours before the day in North and South America, North Europe, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific Ocean. It will start at 1:02 AM EST (0602 GMT) and end at 7:03 AM EST (1203 GMT).
Because the moon’s orbit around the Earth is tilted, it does not align with the Earth’s shadow every month, and we do not have a lunar eclipse every month.
Solar eclipses in 2021
When the moon is in the “new” phase, it passes between the Earth and the sun, so that the Earth-facing part appears dark.
Occasionally, the moon’s orbit aligns with the sun so far that some or all of the sun may be blocked by the moon, as seen from Earth. When the moon completely blocks the sun’s disk, we see a total solar eclipse during the day, which can be a truly amazing place. At other times, the moon can only partially block the sun in a partial solar eclipse.
The moon can even create a “ring of fire” eclipsed by the sun when it passes directly in front of the sun, but it is at a point in its orbit that is too far from Earth to completely cover the sun’s disk. It leaves a ring or “ring” around the moon to create what is called an annular solar eclipse.
There will be two solar eclipses in 2021. An annular solar eclipse of “ring of fire” will occur on June 10, 2021. It will be visible as a partial eclipse in the regions of North America, Europe and Asia, with the “ring of fire ”“ Visible effect in northern Canada, Greenland and Russia.
The total solar eclipse of 2021 will take place on December 4. It will be visible only entirely from Antarctica, with partial views visible from South Africa and the South Atlantic.