{"id":354480,"date":"2026-03-30T01:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T01:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/354480\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T01:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T01:32:09","slug":"how-and-when-to-see-aprils-full-pink-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/354480\/","title":{"rendered":"How and when to see April’s full Pink Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year Easter is on 5 April. The date is determined by the timing of key astronomical events, external<\/a>. It always falls on the first Sunday after the first full Moon that follows the spring equinox. <\/p>\n

Over the centuries different parts of the Christian church used different calendars – the Gregorian and the Julian – which meant that the Easter would not always be on the same date around the world.<\/p>\n

Attempts to bring everyone together meant that while many eastern European countries now use the Gregorian calendar for civil events, they use the Julian one to mark Orthodox festivals. <\/p>\n

The date of the astronomical equinox also tends to naturally fluctuate between 20 and 21 March. In 2026 it happens on 20 March. <\/p>\n

However, the Christian church decided to ‘set a fixed’ date for it to help regularise its own calculations and always uses 21 March, external<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As the first full Moon after 21 March is the Pink Moon on April 2, it means Easter is the following Sunday – 5 April.<\/p>\n

In a year when the full Moon itself rises on a Sunday, Easter will be set for the following one. <\/p>\n

The new Moon marks the start of each lunar month of the Jewish calendar, with the full Moon always falling mid-way through. <\/p>\n

Passover begins halfway through Nisan, external<\/a>, the first month of that calendar, which is with the arrival of the April full Moon, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year Easter is on 5 April. The date is determined by the timing of key astronomical events,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-354480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}