Get Excited People -- Space To Deliver A Supermoon, A Blue Moon, And A Lunar Eclipse All This Month

Fox News — January skywatchers are in for a rare treat: a Blue Moon, a total lunar eclipse and a supermoon all in the same month.

A Blue Moon is when two full moons happen in the same calendar month; lunar eclipses occur when the moon passes into Earth’s shadow; and supermoons happen when the moon’s perigee — its closest approach to Earth in a single orbit — coincides with a full moon. In this case, the supermoon also happens to be the day of the lunar eclipse.

Shoutout to space and more specifically our buddy the moon having a big ass month this month. Great stuff, really bringing it for the new year. Lunar eclipse? Pretty sweet. Supermoon? Very sweet. Blue moon? Well that shit’s rare. Only happens like once in a blue moon I think.

Here’s the sched:

The first full moon of January will take place on the night of Jan. 1 or the morning of Jan. 2, depending on your location. The second full moon and the lunar eclipse will occur on the night of Jan. 31 or the morning of Feb. 1. And the supermoon will take place on the night of Jan. 30, which is technically one day before the moon reaches peak fullness, but even NASA is willing to call the event a supermoon nonetheless.

My favorite thing about these astronomical events is stopping to consider the implications they had in the olden days. When the heavens controlled everything. When the heavens dictated entire regions’ policy decisions, determined militaristic endeavors, determined who to trust and who not to trust. We cannot talk eclipses and not mention one of my favorite historical events, when battle and astronomy met for an occurrence of the ages:

The Battle of the Eclipse, also called the Eclipse of Thales, was a 585 BCE battle between the Medes and the Lydians. You see, the armies start fighting, killing, and slaughtering, yet THE precise moment the battle reaches its peak, right smack dab in the middle of the damn day… poof! The sun goes out. The moon in mere minutes slides in front of the sun. Darkness engulfs the present world.

Now, consider how religious these fuckers were. How spiritual. It’s damn near 6 centuries before Christ. If a cloud took weird shape they’d sacrifice a hundred cows. When a bird shat on someone they’d huge an international conferences determining the new historical trajectory of their entire civilizations. And here we have my well-respected friend, the fucking sun, just going out in the middle of a huge battle? Da fuk?

Both sides stopped fighting. They agreed to some sort of deal and many, whom otherwise would not have, escaped with their lives.

Great story. That was talking history.

The point is this: A lot of lunar activity coming up. Let’s have a month.