NatGeo | For the first time in almost 20 years, a bright “blue moon” will grace New Year’s Eve celebrations worldwide.
If the skies are clear, revelers looking up at midnight will get an eyeful of the second full moon of the month—commonly called a blue moon. The last time a blue moon appeared on New Year’s Eve was in 1990, and it won’t happen again until 2028.
A blue moon isn’t actually blue—as commonly defined, the name reflects the relative rarity of two full moons in a month and is linked to the saying “once in a blue moon.”
With this New Year’s Eve blue moon, “there is nothing scientific about it, and it has no astronomical significance,” said Mark Hammergren, a staff astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois.
“But I believe it does give us some insight into history and makes us think of how our calendar system has derived from motions of objects in the sky.”
