Why You Won’t See the Moon This Month in Texas

I don't mean to tease all Twilight fans out there, but we will see a new moon in the Texas sky later this month. In fact, Texas can expect to see a few lunar events coming to the midnight sky in the next couple of weeks.

What Actually is a New Moon?

Unfortunately, new moons are not as mystical as a young adult romance novel. The Farmer's Almanac describes these as monthly phases where the moon has absolutely no illumination from the Sun.

You can think of new moons as the exact opposite of full moons where, instead of seeing the bright moonlight bathing our side of the planet, the moon blends in with the sky with little to no glowing at all.

What Happens During a New Moon?

During this time, the moon is positioned smack-dab between the Earth and the Sun. Now, the moon isn't ALWAYS perfectly aligned with the sun, since these rare occurrences are called solar eclipses, but it's close enough where we don't see any of the sun bouncing off the moon at night.

New moons get their name from the fact that they indicate the beginning of a lunar cycle. Because the moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit the Earth, we get to see a new moon once every month.

Fun Fact: It's widely accepted that "moon" has origins from the Latin words metri (to measure) and mensis (month). As a result, the moon got its name because it was used to measure the months.

When is This Month's New Moon?

You can see the full list of new moons in 2025 right here on the Farmer's Almanac website, but these are the upcoming new moons that Texas will see in the night sky:

• June - Wednesday the 25th
• July - Thursday the 24th
• August - Saturday the 23rd
• September - Sunday the 21st
• October - Tuesday the 21st
• November - Thursday the 20th
• December - Friday the 19th

You can read more about new moon behavior and even some folklore behind when to begin planting crops and how some crescent moons look like smiles in the sky from the Farmer's Almanac website.