Moon

It first appeared Sunday and will extend into Wednesday morning. The full moon will reach peak illumination beginning at 4:27 p.m. CT Monday. This moon phase is nicknamed the Wolf Moon, which is rooted in Native American culture.

Early interactions with the Earth may have heated up the Moon and caused it to remelt, producing new lunar rocks and erasing old craters.

The next supermoon — which appears larger and brighter than a regular full moon due to its proximity to Earth — will not be visible for nearly a year.

This time next year, if everything stays on schedule, NASA will send its first crewed mission to the moon, since the end of the Apollo program. Artemis II will be the first flight around the moon in more than 50 years. Its goal will be to test out the Orion capsule and all the other equipment, so that by 2026, Artemis III can put astronauts back ON the moon. The Artemis program is aimed to kickstart a new, more enduring era of space travel that leads to Mars.It's also intentionally more representative than Apollo was. The Artemis program will eventually put the first woman on the moon, as well as the first person of color. It's all as historic and high stakes as it gets, and also pretty daunting. NPR's Scott Detrow goes behind the scenes at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to see how the team is preparing. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The next blue supermoon will not happen until 2032, but supermoons occur more frequently.

The celestial event will coincide with the summer solstice for the first time since 1985.

A new lunar time zone is all about ensuring the success of future, multinational missions to the moon.

A CEO of one of the companies offering "memorial spaceflights" says his customers view it as "an appropriate celebration" of their loved ones.

Recently, India became the fourth country in history to land a craft on the moon just days after Russia's mission crashed on the surface.

The international race to the moon is on, especially after India's successful landing of a spacecraft there.