HACKER Q&A
📣 andrewfromx

Pattern of Moon


Is there any open source code to produce these events:

https://gist.github.com/andrewarrow/b6c39c8898e6ae7c1d3fed6f35b150c7

i.e. I got this data from

https://www.mooninfo.org/moon-phases/new-moon-2022.html https://www.mooninfo.org/moon-phases/new-moon-2023.html

etc for all the years from 2003-2030

but how do I go on to 2040 etc. Does this pattern just repeat?

  👤 ksaj Accepted Answer ✓
While I don't know the answer to your question, a term that might lead you toward the answer is "sidereal."

A sidereal month is 27 days plus a bunch of hours and minutes. That's how long it takes the Moon to go around the Earth. But a full Moon phase as we see it because of the Sun (New Moon to the next New Moon) is 29 days plus some hours and minutes.

There is also the fact that the moon isn't in a perfectly central orbit, which is why we have super moon events. And then there is tidal locking that tends to act as a stabilizer. Surely that impacts this all, but I don't know if and or how.

But with the two cycles - moon phases and sidereal months, you can probably work out if there have been deviations beyond that generalized pattern in the past, or if our leap years and seconds counter the effect. The timing between sidereal months and the moon phases is bound to show the patterns if there are any.

Interesting question for sure.