For the first time in over 30 years, people be able to will see a rare celestial event this month- a supermoon in combination with a lunar eclipse. Previous probes have imaged the far side of the moon, but if successful, China would become the first country to land on it. Below is a photo that Bill Young took of the blood moon – as it is sometimes called – during last October’s lunar eclipse: The moon turns red because Earth’s atmosphere is refracting, or bending the sun’s light in the moon’s direction. It shows the Earth and the Moon both passing in front of the sun at the exact same time. That’s because, during a solar eclipse on Earth, the moon’s much smaller shadow only casts over a tiny portion of Earth, which is why it’s an extremely rare treat to witness a total eclipse of the sun even once in a lifetime.
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The double eclipse began around 06:30 UTC on September 13. The edge of Earth visible near the top of the frame appears fuzzy because Earth’s atmosphere blocks different amounts of light at different altitudes.
The image above was taken in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths of 171 angstroms. Though this light is invisible to our eyes, it is typically colourised in gold. “In fact, not a single one of the known objects has any credible chance of hitting our planet over the next century”. More importantly, SDO’s orbit gives it an unobstructed view of the sun, usually.
Additionally, Washington Post contributor Abby Ohlheiser notes that the Jewish calendar is primarily based on the lunar cycle, meaning it makes sense that a tetrad of full moon eclipses would fall on four holidays that correspond to the moon’s cycle – especially when some of them, such as Passover, always begin on a full moon. Thanks for posting, Charl!
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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is making some big observations of the sun from geosynchronous orbit about 22,000 miles above the Earth. On Sunday – September 13, 2015 – it saw the two happening at once for the first time ever.
