Pink Full Moon This Weekend

 

From NASA:

"The next full moon will be on Saturday afternoon, April 16, 2022, appearing opposite the Sun in Earth-based longitude at 2:55 p.m. EDT. This will be on Sunday morning from the India Standard Time Zone eastward across the rest of Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Ocean to the International Date Line. The Moon will appear full for about three days centered on this time, from early Friday morning through early Monday morning, making this a full moon weekend.

One Moon, Many Names

In the 1930s the Maine Farmer's Almanac began publishing Native American names for the Moon each month of the year. According to this almanac – as the full moon in April – this is the Pink Moon, named after the herb moss pink, also known as creeping phlox, moss phlox, or mountain phlox, a plant native to the eastern U.S. that is one of the earliest widespread flowers of spring. Other names for this Moon include the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Fish Moon, as this was when the shad swam upstream to spawn.

This is also the Pesach or Passover Moon. Pesach or Passover begins at sundown on Friday, April 15, and ends at nightfall on Saturday, April 23, 2022. The Seder feasts are on the first two evenings of Passover.

In the Christian ecclesiastical calendar, this is the Paschal Moon, from which the date of Easter is calculated. Paschal is the Latinized version of Pesach. Generally, the Christian holiday of Easter, also called Pascha, is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. However, there are differences between the times of these astronomical events and the calendars used by the Eastern and Western churches. This is one of the years where these differences matter. Western Christianity will be celebrating Easter on Sunday, April 17, 2022, the Sunday after this first full moon of spring. Eastern Christianity will celebrate Eastern Orthodox Easter a week later on Sunday, April 24."