When Is Ramadan? This Week’s New Moon Will Begin Annual Fast And Set Up A ‘Super Flower Moon’

This week it’s a New Moon.

The moment when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun sees the far side of the Moon illuminated. During this time—marked at precisely 3:27 a.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Thursday, April 23, 2020—no-one on Earth can see anything of the Moon.

However, a few hours after New Moon, when our satellite has moved away from that point in space between the Earth and Sun, its limb is suddenly lit-up, as seen from Earth.

The result is a super-slim crescent Moon.

When that’s sighted by eagle-eyed observers on Earth, it signals the beginning of something significant this month—Ramadan, the month-long sunrise-to-sunset fast observed by devout Muslims all over the world.