video story

Lying in the name of science



News pages and personal accounts on social media circulated pictures of the moon appearing in pink, claiming that "pink moon will appear in the coming days as a rare astronomical phenomenon", but the claim is incorrect, and the circulated image is fabricated.

News pages and personal accounts on social media circulated pictures of the moon appearing in pink, claiming that "pink moon will appear in the coming days as a rare astronomical phenomenon", but the claim is incorrect, and the circulated image is fabricated.


Will the moon appear pink over a few days?
Pink moon will appear over few days as the publishers said

Will the moon appear pink over a few days?

Fares Alsori Fares Alsori   Sunday 17th April 2022

Fares Alsori Fares Alsori   Sunday 17th April 2022

Claim

News pages and accounts on social media have claimed “the moon will appear in a pink color next Saturday, in an astronomical phenomenon” and accompanied pictures of the moon in a pink color that were used as evidence of the validity of this claim.

A Facebook page called (ليبيا فقط) published the photos on April 13, 2022, accompanied by a claim that it is "a rare astronomical phenomenon in which we will see the full pink moon."

"The full pink moon is a beautiful and rare astronomical phenomenon will occur next Saturday" |  Lying in the name of science
"The full pink moon is a beautiful and rare astronomical phenomenon will occur next Saturday" | Lying in the name of science

The claim circulated widely after dozens of pages and accounts contributed to its publication. You can see many of them in the sources table at the end of the article.

Refute the claim

Verify-ٍSy team conducted a research to verify the claim that “the moon will appear pink in the coming days”, and it turned out that the claim was incorrect.

The results of the research showed that the moon will be in a full moon phase on Friday, Saturday and Sunday corresponding to 15-16-17 of this April, and the moon will appear naturally like any full moon we see during the year, and its color will not change to pink and will remain as we know it, and there is no astronomical phenomenon causes the moon to appear pink, similar to the photos accompanying the claim.

Why is the full moon called the "pink moon"?

“Pink Moon” is only a name for the full moon that comes in April, and is repeated on the same date annually. It is a traditional local American designation, associated with the spring season, where some pink flowers and algae -like (Phlox)- begin to appear in this period of the year.

Pink algae (phlox), which is named after the pink moon
Pink algae (phlox), which is named after the pink moon


conclusion

  1. The claim that "the moon will appear pink in the coming days" is false.
  2. The pictures accompanying the claim are fabricated, and there is no astronomical phenomenon that causes the moon to appear pink.
  3. The “pink moon” is a traditional American designation because it coincides in spring with the appearance of pink flowers and algae.
  4. This article has been included in the (Lying in the name of science) section, according to (verify-sy methodology).


Keywords: Moon Earth