Friday’s Rare Black Moon: Here’s What It Means. [View all]

[elleng]

Is the Moon turning black? Well, yes, but it’s nothing to be alarmed about. The Moon “turns black” at least once a month. This month, it’s happening twice.

On September 30th at 8:11 p.m. EDT, we (in the Western Hemisphere) will experience a second New Moon for the month – the first was on September 1st — and some refer to this second occurrence as a “Black Moon.” Every month we usually experience a single New Moon and a Full Moon. But sometimes we get more than one of each.

When we have two full Moons in one month, that second one is referred to as a Blue Moon. And it’s something we can see because, like every full Moon, the side of the Moon facing us is fully illuminated by sunlight.

But in the New Moon phase, the Moon is not visible from our perspective because the portion of the Moon that is actually getting sunlight is the backside of the Moon, the half that we cannot see. (See Figure 1).

http://farmersalmanac.com/blog/2016/09/28/september-black-moon/