Did You Know There’s A Blue Moon Wednesday Night In Texas?

Get ready, we're about to go lunar on you!

Technically the absolute peak of the blue moon will happen at 8:35 tonight, but this is one of those things that you can savor a bit before and after. I can tell you it was certainly spectacular this morning at 4:00 a.m.

The moon has been in the news quite a bit lately as Russia crashed a spacecraft into it, and India landed a spacecraft on it. I can report that you can see neither of these space missions, failed or not, when you check out this big, glorious, glowing orb. I don't know why but I still half-expect to look up there and see something, at some point, but that's my tiny human mind not being able to fully process the size or distance of the lunar surface.

This moon is known as a "blue moon" not because it's sponsored by the beer, but because it's the second moon in a calendar month. It's actually not super-rare, so it's a little weird that people even use the phrase, "once in a blue moon" to mean that something happens infrequently. I guess I should clarify the "rareness" and the best way to do that is to let you know that we'll have another one in August of next year, then a two-year gap with one appearing in May of 2027, then August of 2029.

The really cool thing is that you may also be able to see Saturn with your naked eye (at least according to the very soothing and detailed video below). The narrator can tell you exactly why Saturn is at its brightest and where to find it in proximity to the moon.