There's not telling what Halloween will look like this year, thanks to the coronavirus. But one thing we do know is that it's going to be very, very blue.
According to NASA's National Space Science Data Center, Halloween night is expected to be lit up by a rare blue moon.
Normally, full moons only happen once a month. But because the lunar calendar and the yearly calendar are not synced, there is a rare chance of having two full moons in a single month with, the second one being referred to as a blue moon.
Blue moons occur every two and a half years on average. This year, the first full moon in October—which is called the harvest moon—appears on Oct. 1. This sets the stage for the moon to go through its complete cycle and have a blue moon fall on the 31st.
The rare occurrence of a blue moon seems on par for the surreal show that 2020 has become. This is the first instance of a blue moon in the Americas since March 2018. It is also the first time a Halloween full moon will appeared in United States timezones since 1944, per the Farmers' Almanac. The last Halloween full moon occurred in 2001 but, could only be seen by people in Central and Pacific time zones.
