The more dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the Moon will appear. The blue light from the Sun scatters away, and longer-wavelength red, orange, and yellow light passes through.ĭuring a lunar eclipse, the Moon turns red because the only sunlight reaching the Moon passes through Earth’s atmosphere. But when the Sun is setting, sunlight must pass through more atmosphere and travel farther before reaching our eyes. When the Sun is overhead, we see blue light throughout the sky. Red light, on the other hand, travels more directly through the atmosphere. Blue light has a shorter wavelength and is scattered more easily by particles in Earth’s atmosphere than red light, which has a longer wavelength. Light travels in waves, and different colors of light have different physical properties. The same phenomenon that makes our sky blue and our sunsets red causes the Moon to turn red during a lunar eclipse. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio The Sun is obscured by the Earth, but the glow of its corona is visible. The landscape of the Moon, foreground, is reddened by sunlight filtered through Earth's atmosphere. Here are some more skywatching tips for the month of November. The Pleiades star cluster is to the upper right, and the Hyades cluster ― including the bright star Aldebaran, eye of the bull ― is in the lower left. What else can I see tonight?ĭuring the eclipse, the Moon moves through the western part of the constellation Taurus. Second, since this eclipse is almost-total, the Moon spends a longer amount of time in the Earth’s umbra than it would in a ‘more-partial’ eclipse. Right now, the Moon is near its farthest point in its orbit around the Earth and thus, moves slowly through Earth’s shadow. ![]() Closer to the Earth, the Moon moves faster, while further away, it travels more slowly. ![]() This change in distance impacts the Moon’s orbital speed. This is a long eclipse for two main reasons: 1) The Moon’s orbital speed and 2) The near-totality of the eclipse.įirst, the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not a perfect circle, and the Earth is off-center within the orbit so sometimes the Moon is closer to the Earth and sometimes it is farther away.
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