Spooky season: Rare blue moon to grace the night skies across the world on Halloween, 31 October

This year’s Halloween will offer stargazers a rare second-in-the month full moon sighting on 31 October. It is called a blue moon because it is the second full moon in the same month. This month we observed the harvest moon on the first of the month. According to a report in CNN, the 2020 Halloween full moon will be visible to the entire world, rather than just parts of it, for the first time since World War II. In an interaction with CNN, astronomy educator and former planetarium director said that his high school students thought a full moon occurred every Halloween. The last Halloween full moon that was actually visible around the globe in 1944. [caption id=“attachment_8919881” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Halloween this year will be marked with a rare second-in-the month full moon. Image credit: NASA[/caption] The report added that people from both North America and South America will see it as will Africa, all of Europe and much of Asia. Furthermore, while Western Australians will get to see the phenomenon, those in the central and eastern parts will have to give it a miss. As per Jeffery Hunt’s website When the Curves Line Up, the next Halloween Full moon is during 2039 in North and South America. The phenomenon will occur before Comet Halley’s return in 2061. According to NASA, it is only during recent years that people have been using the name Blue Moon for the second of two full moons in a single calendar month. The older definition of Blue Moon is that it is the third of four full moons in a single season. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1520/october-2020-the-next-full-moon-is-the-harvest-moon/