The Flower Moon will bloom in the night sky this week and dazzle the world for three days.
The moon will appear full at 9:35 a.m. ET on Thursday, reaching its zenith 50 minutes after the sun sets.
The term “flower moon” also marked the beginning of the reign of terror against the Osage Nation in the 1920s, when white men murdered members of the tribe to inherit their oil assets.
The historical events inspired the 2017 book, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” written by journalist David Grann, which was later turned into a Martin Scorses film.
The moon will appear full at 9:35 a.m. Thursday and will reach its zenith 50 minutes after the sun sets. Pictured is a super flower moon that occurred on May 25, 2023
According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, the Flower Moon coincides with the flowers blooming in May.
And it is also called a ‘Mother Moon’, ‘Milk Moon’ or ‘Corn Plant Moon’.
Native Americans called the celestial event because they knew it was time to start planting crops.
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the moonrise will occur around 8:35 PM ET on Thursday, crossing the meridian at 1:14 AM and setting at 5:46 AM on Friday. morning.
Skygazers will get a taste of the Flower Moon on Wednesday when it rises just a few minutes before sunset. America would have to cast their eyes east to see him.
But the main event will occur on Thursday when the moon appears next to Antares, which is about 600 light-years from Earth – one light-year is about eight trillion kilometers.
Although the star is a blazing ruby red color, it is nearing the end of its lifespan as it is running out of fuel.
The Flower Moon will also shine near Antares, an aging giant star about to explode in the constellation of Scorpio.
Once that happens, Antares will collapse and become a supernova: the powerful and luminous explosion of a star.
Scientists captured images of the star using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLTI) in 2017, revealing the most detailed image yet.
The photos showed that low-density, turbulent gas was much further away from the star than predicted.
The team suggested that this movement could not be due to convection – the process by which the movement of matter transfers energy from the core to the outer atmosphere of many stars.
This indicated that a new, currently unknown process may be needed to explain these motions in the extended atmospheres of stars like Antares.