Last night’s blue moon wasn’t actually blue, but it did look big and bright … and was the first blue moon since August 2012.
Every month has a full moon, but because the lunar cycle and the calendar year aren’t perfectly synched, about every three years we wind up with two in the same calendar month.
Normally, though, the moon doesn’t appear blue.
Typically, when a moon does take on a bluish hue, it is because of smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere, such as during a cataclysmic volcanic eruption.