Russia plans to put a nuclear power plant on the moon in the next decade to supply its lunar space programme and a joint Russian-Chinese research station as major powers rush to explore the earth's only “natural” satellite.Last full moon of 2025 will be largest and brightest in years
Author of the article:Spiro Papuckoski
Published Dec 04, 2025 • Last updated 14 hours ago • 1 minute read
The last Full Moon of the year will occur Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025.
The last Full Moon of the year will occur Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025.
Don’t be a full moon fool and miss out on this week’s last major celestial event of 2025.
That’s because the moon will be the closest to Earth and appear slightly larger and brighter on the horizon beginning early Thursday night when it will be at 100% illumination.
By Friday evening, its surface will be 98% illuminated in the night’s sky.
“For most casual observers, the difference is subtle, but it’s more noticeable if compared to a micromoon, when the moon is at its farthest point from Earth,” reports The Almanac.
The supermoon is the last of the year and won’t reappear until next fall.
The Weather Network says it’s also the brightest December full moon since 2008, reaching peak illumination at 6:14 p.m. ET on Thursday.
If the forecast calls for clouds, Canadians can wait to witness the cold moon on Friday as well until just after midnight.
According to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, when the moon is completely full, it is about 27,000 km closer to Earth than average. The shorter distance will make it glow 15% brighter.
NASA explains that the moon is opposite the sun when viewed from Earth and it reveals the moon’s dayside.
The full moon can also produce slightly higher tides along coastlines.
This week’s full moon is the third in a series of three consecutive supermoons.
A Full Cold Supermoon shines high in the sky Thursday night - The Weather Network
This is the biggest and brightest December Supermoon we've seen in nearly 17 years!theweathernetwork.com
Last full moon of 2025 will be largest and brightest in years
Don't be a full moon fool and miss out on this week's last major celestial event of 2025. Read more.torontosun.com
Russia's state space corporation, Roscosmos, said in a statement that it planned to build a lunar power plant by 2036 and signed a contract with the Lavochkin Association aerospace company to do it.
Roscosmos said the purpose of the plant was to power Russia's lunar programme, including rovers, an observatory and the infrastructure of the joint Russian-Chinese International Lunar Research Station.
Russia plans a nuclear power plant on the moon within a decade — Reuters
Russia plans to put a nuclear power plant on the moon in the next decade to supply its lunar space programme and a joint Russian-Chinese research station, as major powers rush to explore the earth's only natural satellite.
Roscosmos did not say explicitly that the plant would be nuclear but it said the participants included Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom and the Kurchatov Institute, Russia's leading nuclear research institute.
The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov, said in June that one of the corporation's aims was to put a nuclear power plant on the moon and to explore Venus, known as earth's "sister" planet ‘cuz, you know, keeping it in the family…
Science hasn't been able to explain how the moon was formed, its unusual orbit, its distance from us, its density, its composition, its structure. These are all still questions. There are theories about the moon that solve some of these puzzles, but not others.
There is only one theory that answers every scientific question about the moon. Just one. That the moon is a hollow, artificial structure, brought here by -- someone else.