Look up! The Full Corn Moon rises Sunday night
Check out the Moon after sunset or just before sunrise to see it looking huge in the night sky!
Eyes to the sky this weekend to see the Full Corn Moon shining in Canadian skies.
The Waxing Gibbous Moon has been lighting up our night skies over the past week or so, with the Moon rising later and later each day, in preparation for this weekend. On Sunday, the Moon will line up on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun, presenting its full illuminated face to us. For roughly 7 billion people, this will be a fairly special Full Moon, as it will pass directly through Earth's shadow to produce a Total Lunar Eclipse.
Due to this Full Moon's exact timing, at 2:11 p.m. EDT on the 7th, it will be on the other side of the Earth from Canada at that time, and thus the eclipse will not be visible from here. (Follow the link, just above, for a livestream of the event.)
However, that same timing means that the Moon will appear full to us (near or at 100 per cent illuminated) on Saturday night, Sunday night, and Monday night.
What is a Corn Moon?
Around a century ago, the Farmer's Almanac printed a list of names, with one for each of the 12 typical Full Moons of the year. Some of these names were sourced from Colonial and European folklore, but most were inspired by the lunar calendars of the First Nations peoples living around the Great Lakes and what is now the U.S. Northeast.
The Full Moons of 2025, including their popular names, dates, and remarkable aspects (micromoon, supermoon, harvest moon, eclipses, etc). (NASA SVS/Fred Espenak/Scott Sutherland)
The Old Farmer's Almanac, says that the September Full Moon is usually called the Corn Moon.
"This time of year — late summer into early fall — corresponds with the time of harvesting corn in much of the northern United States," they wrote. "For this reason, a number of Native American peoples traditionally used some variation of the name 'Corn Moon' to refer to the Moon of either August or September."
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Indigenous Moons
In popular culture, today, these names are used only to refer to the Full Moons. However, they are actually part of the lunar calendar the Indigenous peoples of North America used to track the passage of time throughout the year. Each name, therefore, referred to one full cycle of the Moon, from one New Moon to the next.
The phases of the Corn Moon in 2025. (NASA SVS/Scott Sutherland)
"From the Full Moon cycles, it was noted that certain things happened in the environment. The weather, plants, animals and temperature seemed to follow the cycles of the Moon. One of the patterns that became apparent was that there were 13 Full Moons that occurred before everything seemed to start all over again. Thus a 13 Moon cycle was identified," Wilfred Buck, Researcher and Knowledge Keeper of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, wrote on the Canadian Space Agency website.
"When Europeans made contact with the First Nations peoples of the Americas, it was evident that some Indigenous peoples followed a lunar calendar depicted on the back of a turtle's shell. Turtle shells have 28 smaller outer edge scutes, representing the number of days from one full Moon to the next, and 13 larger central scutes, representing the 13 moon cycles. The turtle (Mikinak Ministik) held a special place in the various cultures of Indigenous people," Buck explained.
Watch below: Wilfred Buck explains Makinak, the living calendar of the Indigenous peoples.
The 13 Moons of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation are:
Kitci Pisim/Mistapiw Pisim (Great Moon/Giant Moon),
Mikisiw Pisim (Eagle Moon),
Niska Pisim (Goose Moon),
Anikis Pisim (Frog Moon),
Sakipakawi Pisim (Budding Moon),
Opaskawiowi Pisim/Ota'imin Pisim (Hatching Moon/Heart Berry Moon),
Paskowi Pisim/Eyapay Apusci Mooswa Pisim (Moulting Moon/Buck Moon),
Opaowi Pisim/Namiw Pisim (Flying Up Moon/Sturgeon Moon),
Pisim/Ininiw Nipin Pisim (Mating/Rutting Moon/Indian Summer Moon),
Kaskatinowi Pisim (Freezing Up Moon),
Nikopiwi Pisim/Pipoon Nikititicikiw Pisim (Frosting Up Moon/Winter Keeper Moon),
Pawacikwanasis Pisim/Mikan Pisim (Blizzard Wind Moon/Wolf Moon), and
Opawacakinasisi Pisim (Frost Exploding Moon).
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13 Moons? Not 12?
The reason why there are 13 Moons in the lunar calendar used by the Indigenous peoples (as well as other cultures, such as the Norse) is because that's roughly how many 28-day lunar cycles there are in a 365 day year.
By the Gregorian calendar, it's easy to think of there being 12 Full Moons during the year — one for every month. However, during a year when the first Full Moon occurs close to the beginning of January, there will be 13 Full Moons in that year.
The Full Moons of 2026, including their popular names, dates, and remarkable aspects (supermoon, micromoon, apogee or perigee moon, harvest moon, eclipses, etc). (NASA SVS/Fred Espenak/Scott Sutherland)*
This occured in 2020 and 2023, and it happens again in 2026, 2028, 2031, etc. In each of those 13-Full-Moon years, the 'extra' Full Moon is a Blue Moon (the second of two Full Moons occurring within the same calendar month).
NASA Moons
NASA scientists have two names for the September Full Moon, as well. Informally, they call it both the GRAIL Moon and the LADEE Moon, after two lunar satellite missions that launched in September.
On the left, the twin GRAIL satellites communicate with each other as they orbit the Moon, while transmitting data back to Earth. On the right, the LADEE spacecraft orbits the Moon, gathering information on its thin atmosphere. (NASA)
GRAIL is the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, which began in 2011, using a pair of twinned satellites that would constantly record the distance between them as they orbited the Moon. This data, transmitted back to Earth, gave researchers extremely precise measurements of the Moon's gravitational field, which provided clues to its internal structure. LADEE was the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, which lifted off in 2013 to study space directly surrounding the Moon, measuring its tenuous xenon atmosphere and collecting information about how much lunar dust was lofted up into space.
(Thumbnail image depicts the Full Corn Moon in the sky on the night of September 7, 2025, with the planet Saturn nearby (bottom left corner), as simulated by the Stellarium planetarium software.)