The early morning
night skies on January 21, 2019, will hold a rare and unusual event as a total
lunar eclipse is set to occur when the Moon is at its closest proximity to
Earth – a phenomenon known as a “Super Blood Moon”, which will not visible
again until 2036.
Though the event
is rare,
it is not a sign of “impending doom” as some publications have claimed.
Of the 87 total lunar eclipses that will occur during this century,
Newsweek reports that
just 28 will coincide with the perigee of supermoons, or the point when
the Moon is closest to Earth.
A total lunar
eclipse occurs when the Earth, Sun, and Moon are in syzygy alignment,
the Greek word for being paired together, when the Earth comes
between the Sun and Moon, covering the Moon in its shadow. The varying stages
of Earth’s three shadows, known as the umbra (the darker, central part), the
penumbra (the outer part), and the antumbra (the partly shaded area beyond the
umbra), dictates what sort of eclipse will occur – in this case, the umbra.
When this happens,
the Moon can turn a coppery red – hence the nickname Blood
Moon – as light passing through the Earth’s atmosphere is refracted
back towards the Moon. Its color during totality depends on dust found in the
Earth’s atmosphere at the time, which blocks out higher frequency blue waves
and allows longer red waves to come through, and can range from a deep, dark
red to lighter hues of orange and yellow. NASA captured a time-lapse of a
similar Super Blue Blood Moon event in January 2018 over the agency’s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
The Royal Museums
Greenwich says that
the full eclipse will be visible over most of North America, South America, and
parts of west and north Europe while the rest of Europe and Africa can tune in
just in time to catch the end of it. The Moon will begin to enter the
Earth’s shadow just after 2:30am GMT, with the maximum eclipse taking place
until 5:15am. In total, the entire eclipse will last for more than five hours,
ending at 7:48am.
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