Look Up This Week to See the Bright ‘Cold’ Moon, the Last Supermoon of the Year

December’s full moon will reach peak brightness on Thursday, but it will look striking for the next few nights—especially when it’s just above the horizon

Margherita Bassi | Daily Correspondent

December 3, 2025

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On Thursday, December 4, the night sky will be graced with the last supermoon of 2025. Earth’s natural satellite will appear brighter and bigger than usual, and it will reach peak illumination at 6:14 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Don’t worry if you can’t catch a glimpse that evening. The moon will glow brightly and appear full on Wednesday and Friday night as well, per Live Science’s Jamie Carter.

Supermoons can look up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the year’s faintest moon, although the size difference can be hard to detect with the naked eye, according to NASA. The phenomenon happens because the moon’s 27-day orbit around Earth is shaped like an oval. That means our nighttime companion has a closest point to us, where it’s about 226,000 miles away. (It’s farthest point from Earth is roughly 251,000 miles away.)

A supermoon refers to a full moon that occurs when the satellite is around its nearest distance to Earth. Usually, three or four supermoons will happen in a row across a few months. The current run began in October, and the last supermoon of the set will happen on January 3.

The December 4 supermoon will be the second-biggest full moon of the year, after November’s event, per Live Science. While the moon will reach complete fullness at a particular moment, the most spectacular view will be when it rises just above the horizon, regardless of the time or your location, according to the outlet.

That’s because of an effect called the moon illusion, which doesn’t yet have a scientific explanation, reports the Associated Press’ Adithi Ramakrishnan.

“When you have a supermoon, that effect is just slightly more striking,” William Alston, an astronomer with England’s University of Hertfordshire, tells the outlet.

Scientists don’t officially use the term “supermoon.” Some astronomers even think the events are just “hype,” Deborah Byrd and Marcy Curran wrote for EarthSky after November’s supermoon, which was this year’s closest—and thus biggest. The disdain probably came from the term rising in popularity a few decades ago, and people mistakenly thinking that a supermoon would look larger than it actually does, they wrote.

The moon that’ll shine tomorrow night—and the full moon every December—is often called the “cold” moon, a name tied to Mohawk traditions, in reference to the chilly season, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Other traditional names for this month’s full moon include “winter maker” moon (Western Abenaki), “drift clearing” moon (Cree), “snow” moon (Haida, Cherokee) and the “long night” moon (Mohican).

The long-night moon, in honor of the longest nights of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, is a particularly appropriate name. December’s full moon ascends higher in the sky than the other full moons of the year, per Live Science. That’s because during the northern winter solstice, around December 21, the sun is at its lowest point in the sky, meaning the full moon—which is opposite the sun—is at the highest point at night.

Here’s to a cloud-free sky with minimal light pollution. Even if the cold supermoon won’t look shockingly bigger, it’s still a reminder of the gargantuan celestial movements within our solar system.

Margherita Bassi | Read More

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.