The First Full Moon of 2024—The ‘Full Wolf Moon’—Will Soon Rise, But Why Is It Called That?

An illustration designed by The Epoch Times using imagery from Shutterstock Mia Stendal/photomaster/Fernando Astasio Avila/Shutterstock

The eerily mysterious sounding name “Full Wolf Moon” denotes the full moon that occurs every January—the first full moon of the year! The first thing one might ask about this moon is how it got its ominous-sounding moniker that seems more fitting for Halloween.

Packs of wolves were heard howling outside villages in Colonial American times, and traditionally it was thought this was from hunger during the winter months, according to Farmer’s Almanac. But in fact, today it is known that wolves howl for myriad reasons: to define territory, solidify social bonds, locate members of the pack, and coordinate hunting activities.

Two wolves howling in Norway. Bjarne Henning Kvaale/Shutterstock

Nor is January’s full moon necessarily special for having such a name—all calendar months have their own moons and associated names, such as the Worm Moon in March and Strawberry Moon in June. Such names do not denote just the full moon either, but their entire respective lunar month.

Traditionally, various cultures have named full moons to match the seasons in which they fall. Besides Wolf Moon, it has been given other names: In parts of Canada, where the sound of cracking is heard in the trees during winter, this moon was referred to as the Frost Exploding Moon by the Woodland Cree people. It was given the name Spirit Moon by the Ojibwe, connecting it with the aurora borealis as well as a time of prayer and reflection.

A full moon in Madrid, Spain. Fernando Astasio Avila/Shutterstock

And the list of popular nicknames goes on. Countless other cultures have linked this moon with winter season: According to Farmer’s Almanac, it was called the Cold Moon by the Cree, the Freeze Up Moon by the Algonquin, and Severe Moon by the Dakota.

As for when the Full Wolf Moon will rise in January, one might ask, is it too late to view it? No, it’s not too late.

The Full Wolf Moon will fall next week on Thursday, January 25, at exactly 12:54 p.m. EST—which is in the middle of the day in most of North America.

But, not to worry, the moon will still look quite full indeed later that night, after it rises just minutes before sunset; you will see it rising in the east as the sun sets in the west. (In New York moonrise will be at 4:56 p.m. and sunset 5:06 p.m.) It will also appear to be almost, but not quite, full on the nights before and after that.

Now, some more curious types might wonder what causes the “fullness” in the moon to begin with. Why is it full at that precise moment and not other times? Why does it not correspond with moonrise or its zenith? Great questions. The mysteries of the moon go beyond names.

To begin with, why do both the sun and moon rise and set? For the same reason, all other celestial bodies in the heavens rise and set in our skies, in fact: the Earth rotates. Thus, all things in outer space spin around us, causing night and day, sunrise and moonrise.

The lunar phases. Illustration - Delpixel/Shutterstock

But Earth’s rotation is not that which controls the fullness of the moon, nor what causes the other phases of the lunar cycle. Speaking of the moon’s cycle, it has eight distinct phases:

• New Moon
• Waxing Crescent Moon
• First Quarter Moon
• Waxing Gibbous Moon
• Full Moon
• Waning Gibbous Moon
• Third Quarter Moon
• Waning Crescent Moon

What causes moon phases then? It’s not the Earth’s rotation, but the moon’s orbit around Earth and its position relative to Earth and the sun that cause them. It takes 29.5 days for the moon to orbit once around our planet—which explains why one lunar cycle is approximately one month.

As for full moons, like Earth, the moon has a daytime side and nighttime side, and full moons appear when its daytime side is maximally exposed to Earthly observers. This only occurs at one position along the moon’s orbit: where the moon is on one side, the sun directly on the opposite side, and Earth exactly in the middle. All three objects line up in space—moon, Earth, and sun—with the moon’s daytime side facing us, looking its fullest and roundest. The monthly event is irrespective of Earth’s rotation, what time zone you’re in, sunrise, and moonrise.

A 1:1 scale model of the Luna 3 spacecraft at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow, Russia; (Inset) The first image returned by Luna 3 shows the far side of the Moon to be far different from the near side, with noticeably fewer lunar maria (the dark areas). Public domain

Another question is, why, pray tell, does the moon not appear to rotate as Earth does, preventing us from ever seeing its far side? The answer is, the moon does rotate, but it takes the same amount of time to spin on its axis as it does to orbit around Earth each month. So “it never turns its back to us, like a dancer circling—but always facing—its partner,” as NASA explains.

In 1959, the Russian Luna 3 spacecraft was launched to probe exactly what is on the so-called “dark side of the moon.” And for the first time in history, images of this mysterious place were seen by humans, albeit in extremely low resolution.

Correction: A previous version of this article misrepresented an understanding of the moon’s rotation. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

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