A Rare Full Moon On Christmas, And Other Unusual Celestial Events

When the moon turns full, at 5:11 a.m. CST, it will be the first full moon to fall on Christmas day since 1977.

The next full moon to occur on Christmas day will not happen until 2034.

The final full moon of the year is also called the Full Cold Moon because it happens during the start of winter. We just missed a full moon on Christmas 19 years ago; instead, the full moon fell on Christmas Eve.

The almost full-moon is seen among Christmas lights at a holiday display Thursday, Dec. 24, 2015, in Lenexa, Kan. In several parts of the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as the US East Coast, many people may be tempted to celebrate Christmas as if it were spring or autumn.

You might want to venture outside this Christmas and glance up at the night sky. NASA predicts it will safely fly by at a distance of 6.8 million miles from Earth.

NASA has a spacecraft now orbiting the Earth’s moon.

All is not calm weatherwise, but it will be extra bright this Christmas. But the agency’s Paul Chodas says there’s no reason to be anxious – “The closest this object will come to Santa and his eight tiny reindeer is about 28 times the distance between Earth and the moon”. Further south, it is likely to be cloudier with rain soon arriving in the southwest of England as a new low pressure system arrives from the Atlantic. Look for one on Christmas morning.