January 2027 Moon Phases

January 2027 opens the year with one of its sharpest, most short-lived meteor showers, then closes with a near-perigee Wolf Moon riding high in the sky — near the highest arc a Full Moon can reach for Northern Hemisphere observers. There’s no eclipse on the calendar this month — the next one falls in February — so this is a quieter, cold-sky month built around two main events. Here’s what’s happening and when.

The Quadrantids open the year’s meteor showers

The Quadrantid meteor shower is active from late December through mid-January, but nearly all of its activity is packed into a peak just a few hours long, overnight on January 3–4. Under ideal dark-sky conditions, the shower’s theoretical rate can approach 100–120 meteors an hour, though a more typical hourly count under real-world conditions is closer to 25. The shower is known for producing bright fireballs even when overall rates are modest. Because the peak is so brief and so sensitive to timing, published forecasts for the exact moment of maximum differ by a couple of hours from one source to the next — plan to watch through the stretch from late evening January 3 into the pre-dawn hours of January 4 rather than aiming for a single minute.

This year the peak falls a few days ahead of the New Moon, so the Moon is only a thin, fading waning crescent — around 16% illuminated and dropping — which shouldn’t seriously interfere with the fainter meteors. For the timing of other showers throughout the year, see our meteor shower calendar.

Where the Quadrantids come from, and how to watch them

Unlike most meteor showers, which come from the debris trail of a comet, the Quadrantids are linked to an asteroid: 2003 EH1, thought by some astronomers to be a “rock comet” — a burnt-out comet nucleus that behaves more like an asteroid now. The shower’s name comes from Quadrans Muralis, an obsolete constellation once charted near the modern Boötes, close to the Big Dipper; the name stuck even after the constellation itself was dropped from the official list in 1922.

The Quadrantids favor the Northern Hemisphere; their radiant climbs over the horizon after midnight and is generally highest in the hours before dawn, which is why the pre-dawn window tends to offer the best rates. Give your eyes 20 to 30 minutes to adjust to the dark, get away from city lights if you can, and skip the phone screen once you’re out there. No telescope or binoculars needed — wide, unaided eyes catch more of the sky, and you’ll often see more, longer trails by looking somewhat away from the radiant rather than straight at it.

The Full Moon on January 22 is a near-perigee Wolf Moon

January’s Full Moon is widely known as the Wolf Moon. The name is commonly explained as a reference to wolves heard howling more often during the coldest, hungriest stretch of winter, though the exact origin of the name isn’t as firmly documented as the folklore suggests. Other traditions call it the Old Moon, the Center Moon, or the Moon After Yule, and some regional names lean into the season’s harshness — Severe Moon, Freeze-Up Moon, Frost Exploding Moon. For the fuller history and a look at how these names vary across different traditions, see our Wolf Moon guide.

This Full Moon also turns full about 14½ hours after perigee, the Moon’s closest approach to Earth, at around 357,644 km — comfortably inside the 360,000 km threshold most sources use for a supermoon. February’s Full Moon comes close to perigee too, but at around 363,000 km it falls just outside that same threshold, so whether it also counts depends on which definition you use. At January’s distance, this Full Moon will appear roughly 7% larger and 15% brighter than an average Full Moon. For how this compares across the rest of the year, see our supermoon and micromoon calendar.

Why January’s Full Moon rides so high

A Full Moon always sits opposite the Sun in the sky, and in January, the Sun is near its lowest annual path for Northern Hemisphere observers, close to the winter solstice. That puts a January Full Moon on a much higher arc across the sky for Northern Hemisphere observers, roughly echoing the high summer path of the Sun. Cold, dry winter air can also produce exceptionally clear nights when haze and moisture are low, making the Moon appear especially crisp as it climbs well overhead.

No eclipse this month — but a penumbral lunar eclipse is coming in February

Unlike some months, January 2027 doesn’t carry a solar or lunar eclipse. The next one on the calendar is a penumbral lunar eclipse on February 20, 2027, when the Moon passes only through Earth’s faint outer shadow, the penumbra, without entering the darker umbral shadow. Because the umbra misses the Moon entirely, the dimming will be subtle — nothing like the dramatic shading of a partial or total lunar eclipse. See our eclipse calendar for the full schedule through 2035.