Photo of Blood Moon by TeamwerkAG, Pixabay.
By Brooke Edwards
If you were up early on Nov. 8, you may have noticed an odd sight in the sky through the passing clouds: a blood red Moon. This proceeded an eerie, slow darkening of the Full Moon. For those not familiar with astronomy, this can be a terrifying sight.
What happened that morning was a total lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses, especially total ones, are a rare star-gazing treat. This year, Michigan residents were fortunate to witness two of them: one in the spring and one in the fall. Even though it was partly cloudy here in Manistee both times, spectacular views were revealed during breaks in the clouds. The Nov. 8 eclipse was worth braving the cold pre-dawn, as the Moon slowly, over three hours, turned blood red.
Don’t worry if you are left wondering what exactly a lunar eclipse is. What occurs is actually very simple. It all has to do with the alignment in space (in relation to each other) of our Sun, Earth and Moon. About twice a year, on average, the three will line up perfectly to put on this show. The Moon does not have its own light source, and the illumination we see is a reflection of sunlight. Orbiting Earth every 27 days at 2,286 mph, the Moon will sometimes fall perfectly in-line with Earth and Sun, causing Earth to block light from our Sun, which keeps sunlight from fully hitting the Moon for a few hours.
Lunar eclipses only happen during a Full Moon, as that is when the Moon falls in the perfect spot for the show to happen. When the moon is on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun, and in the perfect position where Earth casts its shadow, light from the Sun will be blocked by our planet. Sometimes only a portion of Earth’s shadow covers the Moon, causing a partial eclipse. During about a third of lunar eclipses, Earth’s shadow totally covers the Moon, causing a total eclipse. Lunar eclipses don’t happen every month because the Moon’s orbit is tilted five degrees from Earth’s orbit around the sun, so most of the time the Moon passes above or below Earth’s shadow.
The white light we see illuminating the Moon on a normal night is a composition of all colors. Visible light (the light that we see) has different wavelengths, red being the longest and violet being the shortest. This is perfectly demonstrated in the rainbows we admire during a rain shower. Therefore, it makes sense that the red hue is the only color to reach around to the temporarily light-blocked Moon. The red light, being the longest and traveling the furthest, is refracted around Earth and illuminates the Moon as it rests in Earth’s shadow, while the shorter wavelengths are scattered by Earth’s atmosphere.
If you were able to catch a glimpse of this total lunar eclipse, you were lucky. The next time we are expected to see one in Michigan is not until 2025. By then, we will be much closer to seeing humans once again set foot on the Moon, thanks to NASA’s Artemis missions.
