Moon tips

Even celestial events need a backing track—and the April 8 total solar eclipse is no different. Whether you’re road-tripping down to Hot Springs, Arkansas for Atlas Obscura’s Ecliptic Festival or flying over to Cleveland, Ohio, you’ll undoubtedly need some tunes to get you in the mood.

Not long after the light first burst from the furnace at the heart of the realm, chaos reigned. Cosmic islands were careening into one another, fracturing and shattering, then melding and building. The most colossal orbs emerging from the pandemonium often had companions of rock or ice dancing around them. One stood largely alone, its fiery surface bubbling away, as another, Theia, approached at breathtaking speed. Soon a white-hot, soundless blast sent an eruption of diamantine matter out to the stars. It took an eon to see the outcome of this massive collision. In the end: a world of green and blue, and its pale companion, Selene.

Atlas Obscura’s Wondersky columnist Rebecca Boyle is an award-winning science journalist and author of the upcoming Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (January 2024, Random House). She shares the stories and secrets of our wondrous night sky.

If you’re still awestruck by early August’seye-popping supermoon, there’s more awe on the horizon. On the night of Aug. 30, skywatchers can admire not just the month’s second full moon — known as a rare blue moon — but a super blue moon.

SpaceX has announced that Yusaku Maezawa, a young Japanese entrepreneur and billionaire art collector, will be the first paying passenger to take a trip around the moon. Maezawa purchased a private journey in Elon Musk’s newest BFR spaceship, which is tentatively scheduled for 2023.