I didn't until this weekend, when the TV news reporter mentioned that June 30th would be a 'blue moon' explaining that it was the second full moon in the calendar month, the earlier one being on June 1st. Two full moons within a calendar month is a very rare event, as each lunar cycle is 29.5 days in length and months except February are either 30 or 31 days.
I decided to search the topic 'blue moon' on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, and discovered some interesting facts, which were new to me:
- A 'black moon' is even rarer than a 'blue moon'. This is when the calendar month doesn't have a full moon at all. The only month when this is possible is February, which has 28 days. When this very, very rare event occurs both January and March can have two full moons and therefore each have a 'blue moon'
- August 2005 was the last time there was a 'blue moon' and May 2008 will be the next. There will not be one in 2009, but November 2010 will have one. I find the November one really interesting as the month only has 30 days, like June 2007.
Even more curious are the terms 'wet moon' and 'dry moon', also known as 'Cheshire moon'.
The term "Cheshire moon" is a reference to the smile of the Cheshire cat of Lewis Carroll's story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The terms 'wet moon' and 'dry moon' originate from Hawaiian mythology, where it was thought that the moon appeared as a bowl which would fill up with rain ('wet moon') and then pour out the rain onto the earth becoming a 'dry moon'. So it is the position of the crescent moon in the night sky, such that a more horizontal 'bowl shape' is the 'wet moon' or 'Cheshire moon'. As the 'bowl' tips and the mythical rain is poured out, the moon appears more vertical , and hence the 'dry moon' saying.
The interesting thing was that we had just watched a programme all about the moon and it's affects on the Earth. I expect that the news reporter had thought that the item about June's blue moon made a great link - which of course it did.
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