Here you see February’s full moon rising over the mountains on Mount Desert Island yesterday evening. As usual, while viewed at a long, low angle through Earth’s lowest (and dirtiest) layer of atmosphere, the moon appeared as an irregular molten globule.
As it rose into the stratosphere, it began to take on its familiar geometric shape:
Once it reached a good sailing height, it was polished silver by the sun’s full light:
This full moon commonly is called The Snow Full Moon or The Hunger Full Moon, based on Native American names for the weather and scarcity of food at the time around what White people called February. Perhaps we also should call this particular full moon the Odysseus Full Moon in honor of the United States spacecraft that landed autonomously in the moon’s south pole region two days before (Thursday, February 22).
As you may know, yesterday’s full moon also is called a “micro moon,” which is the opposite of a “supermoon.” That is, it was passing Earth at the farthest distance in its orbit (its “apogee”), making it the smallest type of full moon we see with the unaided eye. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 24, 2024.)