Ever heard of a super moon? A super moon is a new or full moon coinciding with perigee. Just about everything about a super moon is supersized: it appears bigger, is brighter than an ordinary full moon, and causes larger-than-usual tides. This year’s first full moon occurs on Friday, Jan. 10 but the moon will appear full the night before and after its peak to the casual stargazer.
Full moons in 2020
This is when full moons will occur in 2020, according to NASA:
| Date | Name | U.S. Eastern Time | UTC |
| Jan. 10 | Wolf Moon | 2:21 p.m. | 19:21 |
| Feb. 9 | Snow Moon | 2:33 a.m. | 7:33 |
| Mar. 9 | Worm Moon | 1:48 p.m. | 17:48 |
| Apr. 7 | Pink Moon | 10:35 p.m. | 2:35 (Apr. 8) |
| May 7 | Flower Moon | 6:45 a.m. | 10:45 |
| Jun. 5 | Strawberry Moon | 3:12 p.m. | 19:12 |
| Jul. 5 | Buck Moon | 12:44 a.m. | 4:44 |
| Aug. 3 | Sturgeon Moon | 11:59 a.m. | 15:59 |
| Sep. 2 | Corn Moon | 1:22 a.m. | 5:22 |
| Oct. 1 | Harvest Moon | 5:05 p.m. | 21:05 |
| Oct. 31 | Blue Moon | 9:49 a.m. | 14:49 |
| Nov. 30 | Beaver Moon | 4:30 a.m. | 9:30 |
| Dec. 29 | Cold Moon | 10:28 p.m. | 3:28 (Dec. 30) |
There will be at least two supermoons, happening back to back in March and April.
There will also be a blue moon – not the beer – on Halloween in 2020. It will be the second of two full moons to happen in one month, which last happened March 31, 2018. An alternate definition says a blue moon is the third of four full moons in a single season – that last happened in May 2019 and won’t happen again until August 2021.
The next leap day is February 29, 2020. The last Leap Day was on February 29, 2016. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242189 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds – to circle once around the Sun. Without an extra, or intercalary, day on February 29 nearly every four years, we would lose almost six hours every year. After only 100 years, a calendar without leap years would be off by approximately 24 days.
And if you’re into that sort of thing, in 2020, the planet Mercury will be in apparent retrograde motion during the following ranges of dates:
- February 17 to March 10
- June 18 to July 12
- October 14 to November 3
