Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't   1   it to be blue - the name has nothing to   2   the color of our closest celestial（天体） neighbor.
A full moon   3   on December 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.
"If you're in Times Square, you'll see the   4   moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant," said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.
The New Year's Eve blue moon will be   5   in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up  6   New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.
However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse（月蚀） on New Year's Eve when  7   of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The   8   will not be visible in the Americas.
A full moon occurs   9   29.5 days, and most years have 12.  10  , an extra full moon in a month - a blue moon - occurs every 2.5 years. The  11   time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't    12    again until 2028.
Blue moons have no astronomical  13   , said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
"`Blue moon' is just a  14   in the same sense as a `hunter's moon' or a `harvest moon,'" Laughlin said in an e-mail.
The popular definition of blue moon  15   after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misunderstood the Maine Farmer's Calendar and marked a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the calendar  16   a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.
Though Sky & Telescope corrected the 17   decades later, the definition caught on. For purists（语言纯正癖者）, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a  18   moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.
In a tongue-in-cheek essay  19   on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: "If skies are clear when I'm   20  celebrating, I'll take a peek（眯着眼睛看） at that brilliant orb（天体） as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl."
(   ) 1. A. wish                  B. wait                        C. hope                D. expect
(   ) 2. A. deal with            B. do with                   C. develop with     D. form into
(   ) 3. A. occurred            B. came                       C. ran                   D. went
(   ) 4. A. full                  B. half                         C. bright                  D. part
(   ) 5. A. out of sight               B. visible                     C. big                   D. clear
(   ) 6. A. until                  B. when                       C. before              D. since
(   ) 7. A. part                   B. all                           C. any                  D. none
(   ) 8. A. moon                 B. eclipse                     C. sun                  D. shadow
(   ) 9. A. each                  B. every                             C. either                      D. all
(   ) 10. A. On the whole    B. Generally speaking   C. On average       D. In addition
(   ) 11. A. last                  B. next                        C. other                D. another
(   ) 12. A. go                   B. see                          C. come                D. look
(   ) 13. A. point                B. evident                    C. theory              D. significance
(   ) 14. A. name                      B. object                      C. phenomenon     D. tradition
(   ) 15. A. created             B. came about              C. made                D. copied
(   ) 16. A. named              B. called                         C. introduced               D. defined
(   ) 17. A. error                B. name                       C. reality              D. number
(   ) 18. A. blue                 B. red                          C. yellow              D. grey
(   ) 19. A. published         B. posted                     C. printed             D. written
(   ) 20. A. in                    B. out                          C. away                D. on

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