This Sunday night will bring us the full moon of August and the best part is it will be a Blue Moon. However, this has nothing to do with colours. When a Blue Moon occurs, the Full Moon doesn’t actually change colour but it is still a rare sight to catch.

The Moon will be full and visible at 12:02 am (universal time) on Sunday, August 22, 2021.  The best time to witness ‘Blue Sturgeon Moon’ from where you are is at moonrise.

As the awaited Blue Moon is just 2 days away and we know how you are super intrigued about the phenomenon, here are some things you didn’t know about this week’s ‘Blue Sturgeon Moon.’

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It is named after fish

Many of you may not know this, but August’s full moon ‘Sturgeon Moon’ is actually named after a fish, the sturgeon fish. It is North America’s largest fish that are typically caught in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.  

It’s actually a Blue Moon

This week’s rare Blue Moon is termed as the synonym for the Full Moon, an inevitable phenomenon that occurs every calendar month.

While the traditional meaning of this moon is a third of a total of four full moons, in this particular case the Blue Moon is prompted by the full ‘Strawberry Moon’ that occurred on June 24, 2021, just a few days after the summer solstice, which allows September’s Corn Moon to occur on September 20, 2021, just a day before the equinox.

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It can be seen twice

It has already been established that Blue Moon will be best seen at full rise, which is at 12:02 am. However, in August there are two successive nights when North Americans should look for the Blue Moon in the southeast—moonrise on Saturday, August 21 and again on Sunday, August 22.

Blue moon has nothing to do with blue colour

The famous Blue Moon will appear orange as it appears on the southeastern horizon, then will turn to a pale yellow as it rises higher into the sky, eventually, becoming a bright white. These colour transitions will take place because the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in Earth’s atmosphere are sleeker than the wavelength of red light, so red light passes through while blue light doesn’t.

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The next Blue Moon will be seen after 3 years

This is because such Blue Moon is the third of four full Moons in a single season, thus, the rare moons like this weekend’s can only occur in the month before a month that features a solstice or an equinox, i.e, in February, May, August or November.

The next Blue Moon will occur probably in August 2024. However, there will be a ‘monthly Blue Moon,” the second full Moon in the same month—on August 31, 2023.