A Beaver Moon is coming this weekend — here's what that actually means

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November 3, 2017 9:46 PM

The Beaver Moon peaks this weekend at 1:22 a.m. ET on Saturday. But all strange-sounding names for the moon have one important thing in common.

The Beaver Moon peaks this weekend at 1:22 a.m. ET on Saturday.

The phenomenon is also called a Frost Moon, but both names describe the same thing: the full moon.

In fact, these two labels join dozens of other names for this phase of Earth's largest satellite. The terms change from month to month:

January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:

Yes, these names all refer to the full moon.

Native Americans and others accumulated them over millennia to help signal important seasonal changes and activities. (November was a good time to trap beavers, for instance.)

There are also more contemporary names like supermoons and blue moons.

You can learn more about the meanings of these and other moon names — some of which are obvious, others not as much — in this thorough list by Business Insider's Rebecca Harrington.

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