A full Pink Moon will take place on April 15, 2014. A lunar eclipse will also take place, making it also a “Blood Moon.”
According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the first full moon in April is referred to as the Full Pink Moon.
“This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn,” says the Almanac.
The name comes from Native Americans. It doesn’t mean the moon will be pink in color, but it refers to the color of the flowers.
In the Christian tradition, the moon coming April 15 is called the Paschal Full Moon--the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
The term “Blood Moon” is used because the moon can appear red during a total lunar eclipse.
“Oftentimes, the full moon appears coppery red during a total lunar eclipse because the dispersed light from all the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets falls on the face of the moon. Thus the term Blood Moon can be and is applied to any and all total lunar eclipses,” says a post from Earthsky.org.
It adds: “The April 2014 full moon passes directly through Earth’s dark (umbral) shadow. The total part of the April 14-15 eclipse lasts nearly 1.3 hours. A partial umbral eclipse precedes totality by over an hour, and follows totality by over an hour, so the moon takes a little more than 3.5 hours to completely sweep through the Earth’s dark shadow on the night of April 14-15.”
Residents in North America and South America will get the best view of the total eclipse on the night of April 14 to April 15. The total eclipse starts at 7:07 p.m. Universal Time (UT), and the partial umbral eclipse begins at 5:58 p.m. UT. In the U.S. and North America, it can be viewed at around 1:58 a.m. ET.
A full list of times is available here.
