Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning.
The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa.
The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color.
Photo: Reuters
This is because the only sunlight that reaches the moon is “bent and scattered,” as it goes through Earth’s atmosphere, said Daniel Brown, an astronomer at Britain’s Nottingham Trent University.
It is similar to how the light can become pink or red during sunrises or sunsets on Earth, he added.
The more clouds and dust there are in Earth’s atmosphere, the redder the moon appears.
Brown called the lunar eclipse, which lasted about six hours, “an amazing way to see the solar system in action.”
The period when the moon is completely in Earth’s shadow — called the totality — lasts just more than an hour.
This event has been dubbed the “Blood Worm Moon,” after one of the names given to March full moons by some Native Americans.
In North America, the moon started to look like a bite was being taken out of it from 1:09am Eastern Time, with the totality from 2:26am to 3:31am. NASA said.
In France, the totality was from 7:26am to 8:31am, the French Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation said.
Only the most western parts of Europe, such as France’s Brittany region, got a chance to see the totality before the moon set.
People in New Zealand have the opposite problem, with the eclipse only partially visible as the moon rose.
Brown dislikes the term “blood moon,” saying it has a negative connotation and “originates from a misinformed theory of the end of the world.”
But not all societies took a negative view of these celestial shows.
Some people in Africa traditionally viewed a lunar eclipse as a conflict between the sun and moon that could be resolved by people “demonstrating on Earth how we work together” and laying old feuds aside, Brown said.
He called it “an amazing story that should inspire us all.”
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