See the Last Full Moon of the Decade Tonight
Today’s full moon is the last we will see before 2020. And conveniently for those of us who go to bed early, sunset is always the perfect time to see the full moon.
As Eric Mack points out on CNN , the full moon will always be on the opposite side of the earth from the sun, so it rises in the east at the same time the sun sets in the west. And at this time of day, the moon looks the largest and brightest.
This moon also has something numerically special: if you are in Eastern time, it reached full brightness last night at 12:12 pm on December 12th. Nice, right? It is still more than 99 percent full, so you won’t miss much if you don’t see it until tonight.
Another little thing: the traditional folk astronomical name for the December full moon is a cold moon . This derives from the same set of names from the Indians that gives us “wolf moon” (January) and “full moon” (September). However, the actual names that the tribes used in their lunar calendars were different; you can find a list of them here . Moon names, which roughly correspond to December, include some descriptions of snow or cold, but also “bursting trees” and “cooking moon”.