It’s in the stars
Dave Reneke
WHEN you hear someone say “once in a blue moon” you know what they mean.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
They’re usually talking about something rare, silly, and even absurd.
After all, when was the last time you saw the moon turn blue?
Well, rare or not, we’re having one this week and you’re in invited to the party.
Are blue moons real?
“You bet, and it’s happened several times before,” said Dave Reneke from Australasian Science magazine.
“The moon doesn’t actually turn blue, it just looks that way, but it does have a very real cause.”
Pollution from bush fires or volcanoes in the Earth's atmosphere can make the moon look particularly bluish.
The extra dust scatters blue light.
For example, the Moon appeared bluish green across the entire Earth for about two years after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883.
In 1927, the Indian monsoons were late arriving and the extra long dry season blew up enough dust for a blue coloured Moon.
In 1951 the Moon in North America turned blue when huge forest fires in Canada threw smoke particles up into the sky.
There were also reports of a blue-green coloured moon caused by Mt St Helens in 1980 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991.
“A blue moon is simply the second full moon in a calendar month,” Dave said.
“Ancient cultures around the world considered the second full moon to be spiritually significant.
“Even in music there’s a connection.
“Songs that use Blue Moon do so as a symbol of sadness and loneliness.”
It was once thought that to sleep under direct moonlight would cause a person to go mad or blind.
It was from this lore that the word “lunatic”, originating from “luna”, or moon, and “tic”, meaning stricken arose.
“Blue moons happen every two and a half years, on average and an interesting fact is that February is the only calendar month that can never have a blue moon, with just 28 days in total,” Dave said.
Did you know?
SPENDING six months in space might thin your skin by up to 20 per cent, according to a team of researchers led by Karsten Koenig from the department of biophotonics and laser technology at Saarland University in Germany.
Scientists have long known that even with daily exercises in the zero gravity environment of space, muscular atrophy can take place because the muscles are no longer being used to support the weight of the body against Earth’s pull.
- Visit www.davidreneke.com for more.