December’s Last Supermoon of the Year Will Occur This Week
In 2025, moon watchers will be able to see the December Cold Full Moon for the last time of the year.
It will peak on Thursday, December 7, at 6:14 pm, but will be visible on Friday and Wednesday night as well.
According to Noha Petro of the Artemis III team, the moon will be visible at the same time as the sunset, so the moon will look perfectly flat for the eye to see, and bright.
The Last of the Supermoons this Year
This is the last of three supermoons we had this year. A supermoon occurs when the moon is close to the earth, there is more is cleared of the earth’s atmosphere and more of the moon is visible.
The Cold Moon is the moon visible during the winter solstice, which is when winter starts for the northern hemisphere on December 21.
Different Indigenous peoples of the Americas also had their own names for this moon. The Cherokee named it the snow moon and the Abenaki called it the winter maker moon.
Petro explains how during winter, the trees are bare which allows the light from the moon to shine through unimpeded. \\”The glow of a supermoon can feel especially striking\\”
A month of lunar anniversaries
This month we celebrate the anniversaries of a full moon along with several historic milestones from NASA.
December 21, 1968, was the date of Apollo 8’s first crewed mission which orbited the moon. The crew broadcast a message from the moon on Christmas Eve.
The last mission of Apollo 17 was to land astronauts on the moon. This mission was launched on December 7, 1972.
These anniversaries are in perfect alignment with the scheduled Artemis II mission which is set to lift off from Earth between February and April 2026. This mission will orbit the moon with a crew of 4 providing the first step toward future lunar landings.
Petro recommended that we enjoy the view: “We are only a few full moons away from sending astronauts toward the moon. Look at the moon this week in awe and remember the achievements of Apollo. With Artemis II, we will land on the moon. The lunar surface is just a few full moons away.”