August marks a special month for lunar enthusiasts, with not one, but two supermoons due to appear.
This phenomenon means that people will be able to see an ultra-rare blue moon, which occurs when a second full moon appears in a calendar month.
The lunar cycle takes approximately 29.5 days, so the occurrence of two full moons in a month is a phenomenon that only happens once every 32 months. There will be around seven blue moons once every 19 years.
August’s blue moons are even more unusual, however, as both full moons are supermoons.
This separate phenomenon takes place when a full moon is near its closest point to Earth, making it appear up to 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than when it is furthest away.
The first will be seen on Tuesday (1 August) evening, while the second comes on the night of Wednesday 30 August.
The use of the blue moon in popular language usually comes in the form of the phrase “once in a blue moon”, to reference an event that rarely occurs.
While this meaning stems from the 19th century, in the centuries before, the blue moon held a different meaning.
Some people had believed that the moon was actually blue, with the first use in the English language coming from Henry VIII’s advisor Cardinal Wolsey.
Criticising the intelligence of his opponents, Wolsey said that they “would have you believe the moon is blue”.
As well as giving its name to a Belgian beer served with a slice of orange, the elusive blue moon has featured across pop culture over the years.
The most popular song with the phenomenon in the title is 1934’s “Blue Moon”, which was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The song became a standard, and was performed by legendary artists including Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and Elvis Presley.
It is also performed by the cover group Sha-Na-Na in the 1978 movie musical Grease, bringing a double entendre to the title for a scene in which the T-Birds “moon” (expose their bare buttocks towards) the camera at Rydell High’s televised dance.
In addition, the song serves as the anthem for football club Manchester City, who play in blue.
Elsewhere in music, the phenomenon has given name to an EP by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (2020’s Blue Moon Rising).
On the screen, Rita Moreno starred in 2000 in a critically panned romcom called Blue Moon, while a Romanian psychological thriller of the same name was released in 2021.
The blue moon also gave its title to a 2019 book in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher action series, the 24th in the series and last to be written by Child alone.
