This is your last chance to bathe in supermoon beams this year!
The Next Full Moon is a supermoon, which is also known as the Flower Moon, Milk Moon, Corn Planting Moon, or the Vesak Festival Moon. You’ll be able to see it starting today (May 5) through to Friday, according to NASA.
To see it, you’ll just need to turn your gaze upward at moonrise or moonset between now and Friday, but on Thursday evening at 8:45am, it will officially be a full moon. Moonrise and moonset are the best times to see it because it sits on the horizon, giving you the opportunity to get creative with any landmarks in the skyline.
Supermoons occur when a full moon is closest to the earth on its orbit — or “perigee-syzygy” if you’re an astronomer. Don’t panic though, it will still be at least 221,772 miles away from the earth, so it’s well out of your six-foot radius.
We’ve had quite a lot of supermoons to gaze up at this year, and this will be the last one in a series of four. As with most supermoons, they tend to follow Northern American naming traditions and the “Flower Moon” moniker is an ode the flowers that are abundant around this time of year. The name traces back to the Maine Farmers Almanac in the 1930s and is also known as the Milk Moon or the Corn Planting Moon.
The May supermoon also corresponds with the Vesak Festival which honours the birth, enlightenment, and passing of Gautama Buddha, according to NASA. So, it’s also referred to as the Vesak Festival Moon by some.
You’ll want to soak up all the supermoon light you can as the next one will only happen next year in April 2021.