Look up early Thursday morning this week, and you may be lucky enough to catch 2020’s third and final supermoon.
The May full moon, also known as the “Flower Moon,” officially arrives at 6:45 a.m. EDT on Thursday, May 7, and it also happens to be a supermoon.
Supermoons occur when the full moon is within 90 percent of perigee, its closest approach to Earth in its monthly orbit.
Supermoons, because of their proximity, appear slightly larger and brighter than a regular full moon.
May’s supermoon won’t be as close as April’s supermoon, but the May full moon will appear just as grand — assuming you’re lucky enough to have clear skies Thursday morning.
If your weather forecast looks like clouds will be in the way on Thursday, NASA says the moon will still appear full for about three days surrounding this time. So you’ll be able to see a mostly full moon from Tuesday evening through Friday morning.
May’s full moon goes by a number of traditional names given to it by Native Americans, including Flower Moon, Corn Planting Moon and Milk Moon, and all of those names have one thing in common: they refer to signs of spring.
During the month of May, flowers are abundant and farmers are planting corn in their fields. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, cows, goats and sheep munch on plentiful sprouting weeds around this time, which helps them produce lots of rich milk.
No matter what you call this moon, we won’t see another full supermoon until late April in 2021. May’s full moon is the final of three months of consecutive supermoons.
A blue moon is coming in October, though. Find out what that means in this video:
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