Merry Moon: Rare full moon on Christmas Day

The Full Cold Moon seen through the star of a Christmas tree in Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday, Dec. 24, 2015. The full moon, which is the last of the year, is called the Full Cold Moon because it occurs at the start of winter. The last time there was a full moon on 25 December was 1977, and there won’t be another one until 2034.

Associated Press

×

The Full Cold Moon seen through the star of a Christmas tree in Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday, Dec. 24, 2015. The full moon, which is the last of the year, is called the Full Cold Moon because it occurs at the start of winter. The last time there was a full moon on 25 December was 1977, and there won’t be another one until 2034.

Associated Press

If you gazed up into the sky on Christmas Eve, and you might have seen something rare weaving through the clouds. And, no, it wasn’t Santa. He and his reindeers will have already zoomed across the horizon.

On Christmas Day, there was a full moon, the first since 1977. It reached its peak at 4:11 a.m. Mountain time.

This full moon, the last one for 2015, is called a Full Cold Moon because it happens during the start of winter.

NASA has a spacecraft currently orbiting the Earth’s moon. Its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission has been investigating the moon’s surface since 2009. The space agency says the mission has collected a “treasure trove of data” and is “making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the moon.”

A full moon on Christmas won’t happen again until 2034, nearly two decades from now, NASA said.

Among Native Americans, it’s the Long Night Moon, or vskihyi, the snow moon (Cherokee), or “when the wolves run together” as in Cheyenne, or kyaamuya, (Hopi, moon of respect), it represents the same thing: The light is returning.