Zvonimir Barishin/Pixel/Defodi Images/Getty Images
July’s full moon is called the “Buck Moon” and will peak early Sunday morning. The Buck Moon will appear above the horizon in Split, Croatia on July 3, 2023.
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This weekend, July’s full moon will shine brightly in the sky, appearing near the anniversary of a special lunar event worth celebrating.
The full moon, nicknamed the Buck Moon, will peak at 6:17 a.m. ET on Sunday, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. It’s called the Buck Moon because that’s when bucks’ antlers are fully grown, the almanac said.
But because the moon will appear full a few days before and after its peak, the best time to view it may be Saturday, the day marking the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the first space mission that put humans on the moon, said Noah Petro, director of NASA’s Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Laboratory.
“The first moon landing took place in the afternoon (July 20, 1969) and the moon walk took place that evening,” Petro said. “What better way to celebrate it than to go outside, look at the full moon and toast to Neil (Armstrong), Buzz (Aldrin), Michael Collins and all the people who helped make Apollo 11 a reality 55 years ago.”
Petro said the full moon will be visible in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, provided local weather conditions allow. To best view the moon, he recommends finding a location with a clear view of the sky, away from tall buildings and trees. Even in cities with a lot of light pollution, the moon will be visible on a clear night sky.
No special equipment is needed to view the full moon, but a telescope or binoculars will help you see its features more clearly. The dark areas you can see on the moon are “vast volcanic lava flows that are billions of years old,” Petro said.
“Even with the naked eye, you can start to see the history of the moon right before your eyes. And that’s one of the reasons I love studying the moon, because it’s revealed to people,” he added. “On a clear night with a beautiful full moon, you can see the differences in color, the differences in the surface, all of which go back to the history of the moon.”
To the average observer, the Buck Moon will look much like any other full moon, Petro says. But a slight shift in direction, known as libration, and a change in distance from Earth in its elliptical orbit mean that the full moon will vary from month to month. To observe it from a different perspective, Petro recommends taking photos of each lunar phenomenon and comparing it to the next.
And for those who want to check out other celestial objects, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus can also be seen in the early morning hours during July, according to NASA’s monthly stargazing highlights video.
NASA’s Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. The space agency plans to establish the first lunar base and further explore the lunar surface, contributing to new discoveries about Earth’s closest celestial neighbor.
Recently, scientists confirmed the first direct evidence of the existence of caves on the moon using radar data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a lunar probe that has been collecting data since launching in June 2009. Researchers discovered a cave that leads to a hole in a vast plain called the Mare Tranquility, the same area where Apollo 11 astronauts landed in 1969.
“When we went to the Moon 55 years ago, we knew almost nothing about it — how old it was, how it formed, how it had changed over its life,” said Petro, who is also project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Artemis 3.
“Every time we learn something new about the Moon, whether it’s a lunar cave or a sample we’ve brought back, it makes us realize how much we don’t know about it.”
Petro added that discoveries about the moon will help us better understand other planets, and NASA hopes that further discoveries about the moon will lead to the first human landing on Mars.
With these recent discoveries and future space missions in mind, Petro encourages people to observe the full moon — and if you miss this one, there’s always another one, he added.
Remaining satellites in 2024
According to the Farmer’s Almanac, there will be five more full moons this year. Here are the dates for the peak full moons:
August 19: Sturgeon Moon
September 17: Harvest Moon
October 17: Hunter’s Moon
November 15: Beaver Moon
December 15th: Cold Moon
