![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/blue-moon.jpg\" "\\"blue")
If anything unusual happens to you Friday, you’ll be right to say it was “once in a blue moon.”<\/p>\nIf anything unusual happens to you Friday, you’ll be right to say it was “once in a blue moon.”<\/p>\n
The July 31 appearance of the month’s second full moon will be the first such occurrence in the Americas since August 2012. Every month has a full moon, but because the lunar cycle and the calendar year aren’t perfectly synched, about every three years we wind up with two in the same calendar month.<\/p>\n
But Earth’s satellite will most likely not appear blue at all.<\/p>\n
Typically, when a moon does take on a bluish hue, it is because of smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere, such as during a cataclysmic volcanic eruption.<\/p>\n
One example of this happened in 1883, when the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa erupted, spewing so much ash into the atmosphere that the moon took on a cerulean tinge for years, night after night. After the massive explosion, which scientists believe rivaled a 100-megaton nuclear bomb, the volcanic debris caused vibrant red sunsets and the moon to have a bluish tint.<\/p>\n
The dark blue tone of an evening sky can affect the coloring we perceive, as well.<\/p>\n
So when the phrase “once in a blue moon” was coined, it meant something so rare you’d be lucky (or unlucky) to see in your lifetime, according to NASA’s National Space Science Data Center.<\/p>\n
The most recent blue moon that was truly blue in hue was in Edinburgh, Scotland, in September 1950.<\/p>\n
Astronomer Robert Wilson of the Royal Observatory observed the event and concluded that the moon was blue in color because the satellite’s light was traveling through a patch of clouds that had particles of smoke and ash from forest fires burning in Alberta, Canada.<\/p>\n
Those particles crossed the Atlantic Ocean and hovered over Scotland during the lunar event, creating a rare spectacle, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n
Today’s modern day usage of the phrase blue moon can be attributed to a Sky and Telescope writer who in the 1940s tried to clear up a confusing definition published by the Maine Farmers’ Almanac. The U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington states that when a season has four full moons, the third one is called a blue moon.<\/p>\n
This lunar event will not be seen again until January 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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