February's full "Snow Moon" has risen, dazzling stargazers with an incredible performance as it climbed over the eastern horizon below the stars of the constellation Leo to flood the night sky with its icy light.
The Snow Moon turned full in the early hours of Feb. 1, when the lunar disk sat opposite the sun in Earth's sky, fully illuminated by its light. It arrived as swathes of the U.S. returned to normalcy in the wake of a brutal winter storm — the kind for which the February moon is named — and beamed down on NASA's Artemis 2 moon rocket, as it lay dormant at Pad 39B of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The full Snow Moon in pictures
Our first image comes courtesy of Michael Heiman, who captured the lunar disk on Jan. 31 — the day before it turned full — as it hung above the slopes of the Italian Alps shortly before sunset. The shot was taken close to the town of Tirano in the Lombardy region of Northern Italy.
Mattia Ozbot captured a gorgeous image of the full moon rising a few hundred miles to the east from the Italian town of Cortina D'Ampezzo, as the lunar disk peeked from behind a snowy hill lined with evergreens.
Photographer Tayfun Coskun snapped this dramatic view of a passenger airline crossing the hazy full moon in the skies above San Mateo, California, soon after takeoff on Feb. 1, as the exhaust and heat plume of its engine was backlit by reflected sunlight from the lunar surface.
This next shot was captured by Greg Gage using a Nikon D5500 camera with a Meade 1000 mm telescopic lens as it loomed large over the Little Florida Mountains close to the city of Deming, New Mexico. "The skies were amazingly clear, allowing for a lot of detail. However, there was no snow in sight," Gage told Space.com in an email.
This atmospheric shot of the Snow Moon was captured by Martin Bernetti as the lunar disk climbed through the cloudy skies above Panama City.
Bernetti also took a wide-angle view of the full moon as it backlit the clouds above the metropolitan skyline of Panama City, while skyscrapers illuminated the scene with their own artificial light.
Our next image, captured by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo, features the full moon shining over NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis 2 moon rocket, as it stood ready to carry astronauts on a roughly 10-day mission to orbit Earth's natural satellite for the first time in over five decades.
Photographer Lorenzo Di Cola positioned himself to capture the lunar disk as it rose above the domed roof of the Santa Maria della Salute Church in Venice, Italy close to sunset on Feb. 1. The moon's yellowish hue is a result of the light scattering qualities of Earth's atmosphere, which deflects the blue wavelengths of reflected sunlight while allowing redder wavelengths through as it lurks close to the horizon.
Vlasov Sulaj snapped a dramatic view of the near-full moon shining in the evening sky ahead of sunset on Jan. 31, above the dark profile of Mount Dajti close to the city of Tirana, Albania.
Our final image was captured by Mert Alper Dervis as the Snow Moon climbed over the bustling skyline of the city of Toronto in Ontario, Canada on the evening of Feb. 1, as the needle-like form of the iconic CN Tower loomed to its left.
The next full moon is the "Worm Moon", which will occur at 6:38 a.m. EST (1138 GMT) on March 3. It will also give rise to a dramatic "Blood Moon" total lunar eclipse, as Earth's shadow sweeps over the face of its natural satellite, turning it blood red as the light of every sunset and sunrise is refracted onto its surface.
Read more: March 2026 total lunar eclipse: Everything you need to know about the next 'blood moon'
Tempted to try your hand at capturing the night sky for yourself? Then be sure to check out our roundups of the best lenses and cameras for astrophotography, along with our picks of the best astronomy smartphone apps to help you discover exactly where the moon will be on any given night.
Editor's Note: If you would like to share your moon photos with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.
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