Curious Facts - Rare Super Blue Blood Moon 31 Jan. 2018

Next Tuesday we're going to get to see a super blue blood moon.

Image credit: Jose Antonio Hervas

Sounds like something out of Twilight, but it's just a kind of lunar eclipse. Let's break it down. A blue moon is when we have two full moons in the calendar month. This is because our months are based on solar cycles, the 365-day year, not the 27-day lunar cycle. This happens once every 2.7 years, but doesn’t actually change the way the moon looks.

Source: space.com

A supermoon is when the moon is at its closest point to the Earth (its perigee) and is a blue moon. Because the moon will be closer to us making it look bigger and brighter. Technically, the supermoon is on the 30th, but that’s still close enough in time that it will be 14% bigger and 30% brighter than usual.

Source: universallifetools.com

A blood moon is a total lunar eclipse, where the Earth sits between the sun and the moon. This causes the light coming from the sun to pass through the Earth’s atmosphere, which deflects blue and green rays of light. What light does fall on the moon gives it its red/orange colour. This is the same process which gives us the vibrant colours of a sunset. Because the sunlight we see is being reflected, we can watch these eclipses with the naked eye.

Source: shas595 on slideshare.com

This conjunction of events occurs rarely, the last time was over 150 years ago. It will be most visible across Asia, Oceania and most of North America, but won’t be seen in most of South America, Africa and Europe. Here’s a map showing where the eclipse while be visible from and at what time.

Source: NASA

Treat your brain some more and learn how plants communicate and change their environment, about philosophers on drugs, and more at my blog.

Stay super Steemians!

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