Wolf Moon: First full moon of the year to rise tonight
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Your support makes all the difference.The “Wolf Moon” has arrived, with the first full Moon of the year.
The Moon will look big and bright in the sky on Friday night, as a result of its lineup with the Earth and the Sun. It looks lit up and round because it is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun is, meaning that all of the light can reach it, reflect back to us and give us a full view of the lunar surface.
The full Moon on 6 January will arrive at around 11pm UK time, or a similar time wherever people are in the world. In the US, for instance, it will be at its fullest around 6pm eastern time, because of timezones.
In the UK and Ireland, the view could be obscured by cloud cover that will be thick throughout the whole night. It will not clear until the evening of Saturday, 7 January, according to the Met Office’s forecast.
The “Wolf Moon” means nothing special about either the Moon or our view of it. It is simply the name given to the first full Moon of the year, in January.
It is said to be given the name because wolves are active during those early parts of the year and may be heard howling through the winter. Those supposedly folkloric names have gained new interest in recent years – though many of them have disputed and unclear origins.
Those in use today are taken from the American journal the Farmer’s Almanac, which listed the names of the months in the early 20th century. That claimed that many of the names were taken from the Native American words for the Moons – though that doesn’t appear to be true in all cases.
February’s, for instance, is known as the “Snow Moon”, and there are similar names throughout the year. Perhaps the most interesting of this year’s Moons are those in May, which is known as the Flower Moon and will come with a total lunar eclipse, as well as June’s, known as the Strawberry Moon and which will be a “Supermoon”.
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