As the Moon prepares to block the Sun’s surface in two weeks, it warms up and a penumbral lunar eclipse occurs on Sunday evening or Monday morning, depending in your time zone.
Generally speaking, eclipses are the results of a fragile dance between the Moon, Sun and Earth. Lunar eclipses occur when a planet passes between the Sun and the Moon. This is in contrast to a solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon comes between the opposite two bodies.
“It’s all about the shadows,” said Noah Petro, a planetary geologist working on the planet Lunar reconnaissance orbiter for NASA. The sun illuminates the Earth, casting a protracted shadow behind it.
“And every now and then the moon wanders into that shadow,” Dr. Petro said.
In essentially the most dramatic version of the event, the darkest a part of Earth’s shadow flows across the lunar surface, turning it scarlet. This is a complete lunar eclipse, also called a blood moon.
But you will not see it occur overnight. On Monday at 12:53 p.m. ETThe moon will only begin to go through the outermost a part of Earth’s shadow, called the penumbra. As a result, his entire face will likely be barely darkened.
Is it value trying to see it? Dr. Petro thinks so. However, this alteration will likely be difficult to capture with the naked eye, so he encourages you to use binoculars or a telescope and observe how the moon’s brightness changes at night.
Dr. Petro says lunar eclipses occur slowly, over the course of a couple of hours, so “if you only go out once to watch them, you might not even notice it’s happening.”
Unlike their solar counterparts, lunar eclipses could be viewed by everyone on the night side of the Earth. According to Dr. Petro, the rationale for this difference is the several sizes of celestial bodies.
Because Earth is far larger than the Moon, its shadow is large enough to cover all the surface of the Moon – an effect that will likely be visible to people in many of the Americas tonight. Skywatchers in western Africa and eastern parts of Asia and Australia might also see a part of the eclipse.
On the opposite hand, the Moon is far smaller than our planet. So during a solar eclipse, only a narrow path on the Earth’s surface is plunged into darkness.
Although different, these two celestial events are related. Both involve the alignment of the Moon, Earth and Sun, but in numerous orientations. Lunar and solar eclipses all the time occur in pairs, two weeks apart – that is how long it takes the Moon to move from one side of the Earth to the opposite.
“The moon is a dance partner we’ve had for four and a half billion years,” Dr. Petro said, adding that each forms of eclipses should remind us of the importance of our cosmic companion.
“We are part of the system,” Dr. Petro said. “Eclipses are a great reminder that we are not alone in space.”
