The New Decade Arrives Under a Blue Moon Tonight
Tonight, New Year's Eve, you should look up because there is going to be a Blue Moon. Will it really be blue? Of course not. But it is still called a Blue Moon. The term “Blue Moon” has had a few different meanings throughout history. However, most commonly nowadays, a Blue Moon is the second full moon in one month. Tonight's moon is the second full moon of December 2009 -- The first one occurred on Dec. 2. So with that little bit of trivia, I wish you all a Happy New Year... and a Happy New Decade.
Comments:
What is the "2nd New Moon" in a month called?
I don't think it's called anything but then again neither is the second full moon in a month. Guy made the same mistake Sky & Telescope made over 60 years ago wrongly assuming that the second full moon in a month was called a blue moon.<br><br>In fact it refers to the third full moon in a season. The seasons are from the solstice to the equinox and so on. Each season has three months and usually three full moons. Occasionally a season had four full moons and the third of that season was referred to as a blue moon. Rarely did this coincide with having two ful moons in a month.<br><br>For instance the full moon on Dec. 2 was the last full moon of the Fall season and the one we just had on the 31st was the first of the winter season - therefore, no blue moon (the Winter season started on the solstice back on Dec. 21st.<br><br>Check out http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/moon/3304131.html for more info.
Another interesting source for debate the use of the term decade. While most people think 2010 starts a new decade, there are those that say otherwise; rather 2010 is the last year of the first decade of the 21st century.<br><br>So if we go all the way back to the time when our current calendar (the Gregorian Calendar) jumped from 1 BC to 1 AD, there was no year 0000, instead it went from 1BC to 1AD (-0001 to +0001). Since a decade is 10 years, years 0001 to 0010 were the first decade and soforth all the way to 2001 to 2010 being the 201st decade. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_zero)<br><br>However decade does not necessarily refer to a specific set of 10 years, it can mean any set of 10 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decade).<br><br>So let the debate continue. :-)
The 21st century began January 1, 2001, not when the great Y2K mess was predicted to cause chaos. So, probably this year is the end of a decade, not the beginning of a new one. The Gregorian Calendar actually was proposed in the 16th Century as a replacement for the Julian Calendar. I don't think that the Romans used negative numbers for years....
Here's Terence Dickinson's take on the whole sordid story: http://www.skynewsmagazine.com/pages/bluemoon.html<br>As for the "decade" thing, I think I'll go with waiting another year...<br><br>Randy.<br><br>
There seem to be two quite different issues:<br> 1) the color of the moon, which may appear blue now and then.<br> 2) the name of the moon.<br><br>The Old Farmers Almanc had a series of names for the full moons depending on when they occured. These names followed a sequence which required an adjustment after somewhat less than three years due to the fact that there are somewhat more than 12 full moons in a year. The Harvest Moon seems to cause some problems of its own. Most people are not concerned with the name of the full moon, but in September/October the full moon is usually thought of as the Harvest Moon. The rest of the year most people don't give the name much thought.
