The seventh full moon of 2024, also known as the “Thunder Moon” and the “Buck Moon,” made a spectacular appearance in evening skies on Saturday.
Rising in the east against the stars of the constellation Sagittarius, it appeared in muted orange hues just after sunset in the west.
Here’s a collection of the most captivating images of the full “Buck Moon” from across the globe.
The best time to see the “Buck Moon” at its brightest and best was during dusk on Saturday, July 20, though it turned 100% full at 6:17 a.m. EDT on Sunday, July 21.
Although all full moons rise in the east around sunset, shine all night long and sink in the west close to sunrise, the “Buck Moon” didn’t get high in the sky as seen from the northern hemisphere. That’s because the moon mirrors the sun’s position, so when it is at its highest, the full moon—opposite the sun—is at its lowest. In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is the case.
Although the stars around a full moon are hard to see, keen-eyed sky-watchers with binoculars could pick out the tiny planet Mercury, visible in the west for a short time after sunset. Mercury was at its “greatest elongation east,” about as far as it appears to get from the sun from Earth’s point of view.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, around midnight, the rising waning gibbous moon will be visible first on the right and then on the left of Saturn. As seen from Asia and Africa, the moon will occult the “ringed planet” for a few hours on Wednesday.
According to NASA, the moon has a radius of just 1,080 miles (1,740 kilometers), less than a third of Earth’s width. That makes it the fifth largest moon in the solar system after Io, Callisto and Ganymede on Jupiter and Titan on Saturn.
It’s much farther from Earth than most people think. At 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) distant, on average, about 30 planets Earths could fit in the space between them. However, the distance between Earth and the moon is not constant. Within a month, it varies by about 10 percent.
The moon’s orbital path around the Earth is elliptical, so there’s a day each month when it’s at its closest and farthest. When it’s at its closest during a full moon, that’s called a “supermoon.” About three or four tend to occur in a row each year—something that will happen in 2024 from August.
The moon is also slowly moving away from Earth at about 1.5 inches ( 3.8 centimeters) per year, which scientists can measure because the astronauts who landed on the moon during NASA’s Apollo 11, 14 and 15 placed retroreflectors. Cue the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment.
The cause is the tidal interaction between the moon and Earth, which, in theory, means the moon will get smaller in our sky. In about 563 million years, total solar eclipses will become impossible. In fact, they are already less common than they used to be, with the proportion of annular solar eclipses—when the moon covers only the middle of the sun during a central eclipse—on the increase.
The “Buck Moon” turned full the same week as the start of the Perseid meteor shower. The Perseid meteor shower runs from July 14 through September 1 and will peak on the night of August 11 through August 12.
You can see Perseids on any clear night from now through September, but only on peak night will the rates surge to about 100 “shooting stars” per hour in a very dark place. In practice, seeing 50 is an impressive result. A 43%-lit waxing crescent moon will sink into the western horizon on the peak night after midnight.
The next full moon after the “Buck Moon” will be the full “Super Blue Sturgeon Moon,” which will turn full at 18:25 UTC/2:25 p.m. EDT on Monday, August 19. It will be the eighth of the 12 full moons in 2024 and the first “supermoon” of the year.
Pick up my books Stargazing in 2024, A Stargazing Program For Beginners, and When Is The Next Eclipse?
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
