Is today a full moon in March 2023? When did the “worm moon” peak in the UK and how did the name become popular

With the third full moon of the year approaching, British astronomers are hoping to delay the snowy week so they can see the March sphere clearly.

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

Moon names have also made their way into pop culture in recent years, with March’s full moon being dubbed the “worm moon”—here’s all you need to know.

Is today a full moon in March 2023?

The next full moon is falling Tuesday, March 7be achieved Great Britain peak at 12:40.according to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

While it doesn’t technically fall on a Monday night, the moon’s timing means it’s best seen on early Tuesday mornings as well as late evenings.

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 “Gloomy Moon” become popular?

According to the American, the full moon in March is known in some circles as the “wolf moon”. Peasant almanacthis seems to have become the gold standard for such questions.

According to the publication, the name does not refer to earthworms that appear in the soil in the spring.

Instead, apparently: “In the 1760s, Captain Jonathan Carver visited the Naudovessi (Dakota) and other Native American tribes and wrote that the name ‘Worm Moon’ referred to another type of ‘worm’, beetle larvae, which were beginning to appear as the bark of the trees is thawing. and other winter quarters at this time.

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”.

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

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