Is today a full moon in January 2023? When ‘Wolf Moon’ peaked in the UK and how the names caught on

The first full moon of 2023 is just around the corner and the British are hoping for a clear night to see the January Sphere.

Shrouded in folklore and mysticism for millennia, the full moon has inspired everything from religious holidays to horror movies and outlandish doomsday conspiracy theories.

Moon names have also made their way into pop culture in recent years, with this month’s full moon being referred to as the “Harvest Moon”—here’s all you need to know.

Is today a full moon in January 2023?

According to the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the next full moon will be on Thursday, January 6, with a peak at 11:07 pm in the UK.

Here is the full moon calendar for 2023:

• January 6 (23:07)
• February 5 (18:28)
• March 7 (12:40)
• April 6 (5:34)
• May 5 (18:34)
• June 4 (04:41)
• July 3 (12:38)
• August 1 (19:31)
• August 31 (02:35)
• September 29 (10:57)
• October 28 (21:24)
• November 27 (09:16)
• December 27 (00:33)

Why did names like “Wolf Moon” become popular?

The January full moon is known in some regions as the “wolf moon”. Peasant almanacthis seems to have become the gold standard for such questions.

According to the publication, the name came about as expected because: “At this time of year, wolf howls are often heard.

“Many sources claim that the wolves howled from hunger. Instead, wolves use howls to mark territory, locate pack members, strengthen social bonds, and gather to hunt.”

These lunar names and their supposed meanings have gained currency in recent years, with the designations usually attributed to Indian tribes.

They seem to have become more popular since the 2014 lunar eclipse — a phenomenon colloquially known as a “blood moon” because it gives the moon a reddish tint — sparked interest in such romanticized names.

According to Laura Redish, director and co-founder of Native Languages ​​of the Americas, there is no standardized Native American calendar, although NASA claims that these names originated from the Algonquian tribe, which is part of a larger cultural language group called the Algonquian. .

According to a list published by the Council of Tribes of the Algonquian Nation in 2005, some of the common names, such as “strawberry moon” and “harvest moon”, appear to be Algonquian.

Others, such as the “wolf moon”, are not – the tribe apparently referred to January as “the long lunar month”.

According to Ms. Redish, different tribes used different calendars, and a number of calendars appear to have been searched for commonly used names, and some of the popular nicknames are essentially inventions.

What Peasant almanac says the names “come from a variety of places, including Native American, colonial American, and European sources.”