OPINION PIECE
Would you believe me if I told you that after March’s blood moon, a pink moon would rise just after April Fool’s day – followed by a blue moon in May? Well it is (kind of) true, but a good example of the clash of scientific and everyday terms.
On 2 March 2026, the moon did turn blood-red in a total lunar eclipse, sadly visible only from the northern hemisphere. As the moon passed into the shadow of the Earth, the sun’s rays passed through our atmosphere and the short wavelengths (blue light) were scattered away, leaving more red and orange light to bend around Earth and illuminate the moon. This gives it a reddish glow often called a blood moon, but NOT causing any simultaneous catastrophic events on Earth!
April’s full moon, that rose over the sea at 17h52 on Thurdsay, 2 April, is known as the “Pink Moon” thanks to the blooming of pink phlox wildflowers in April in North America. The moon itself did not have any pink colour! Before our current calendars were widely used, many Native American tribes tracked time using cycles of the moon. The names that they thus gave to full moons reflected seasonal changes. You may have heard of some other moons, like the “Honey Moon”, which some cynics have suggested meant that the love of the newly married couple would change like the moon (wax and wane). And other sources say that the honeymoon (“honey-month”) is a relic of “marriage by capture”, based on the practice of the husband taking his wife into hiding to avoid reprisals from her relatives, with the intention that the woman would be pregnant by the end of the month!
May’s Blue Moon (still not coloured blue!) simply refers to when we have 2 full moons in a month – on 1 and 31May, each of those full moons rising over the sea just before 17h00. Thus “once in a blue moon” refers to a rare event, as blue moons occur only once every 2 to 3 years.
Despite the lack of colour, the internet unhelpfully provides pictures like the one above!
The UNIZULU Science Centre has been combatting pseudo-science with real science for almost 40 years and celebrates its birthday on 6 November 2026. We will be celebrating South Africa’s FIFA World Cup campaign with a “Science of Soccer” theme in term 2.
If you want to organise a visit to the centre (or have moon questions!), call us on 0763981071, or email thefish@iafrica.com .
- Dr Derek Fish
Picture: Supplied
