Super Blue Blood Moon Facts

Hear our Exclusive!


Article heading image for Super Blue Blood Moon Facts

This morning Glenney had a live chat with Lou Narr who is on the moon for tonight's spectacle!

 

  • The moon’s orbit is Elliptic – meaning it travels in an oval shape around the Earth, so it’s not always the same distance from the sun.
  • A Blue moon is not actually blue, it is the second full moon in a calendar month. Which doesn’t happen very often as the moon’s cycle is approx 27 – 29 days to orbit the Earth, or as we see it in the sky from new moon, crescent, half, to full moon to waning moon etc.
  • A Blood Moon is another term for Lunar Eclipse. It’s what happens when there’s a total lunar eclipse, we can still see the moon but because it is passing through the Earth’s shadow ( called the umbra ) and temporary hidden from the sun, it takes on a muddy, reddy, rusty colour.  As the eclipse passes the moon’s regular brightness returns.  Penumbra is the name given to the shadow cast by the planet ( or any celestial body ) that only partially blocks a portion of light
  • Scientific explanation - The redness comes from light that is scattered through the Earth's atmosphere," Banks explains. "This scattering, called Rayleigh Scattering, is what makes our sky blue. The particles in our atmosphere are of a certain size and shape to scatter blue light more effectively."And since the light from the Sun has to pass through a lot of atmosphere to get to the Moon - only red light is left, giving it a blood red colour in most cases."If we had no atmosphere, the Moon would just appear black
  • Eclipse will start around 7:40pm with totality at ( Kalgoorlie Boulder Standard Time )8:51pm totality – 10:08pm. Totality is when it will be completely in shadow and the whole face of the moon will have changed colour.
  • The last time a Super Blue Blood moon occurred in Australia was 1983.
  • In some parts of the world it’s been closer to 150 years
  • But on there on these events occur more often – next Blue Moon is March, last two full moons have been supermoons and another lunar eclipse in July but not sure how well it can seen from Australia ( you’ll have to confirm )
  • There’s a Nasa Live stream if the weather is mean and cloud cover hides the moon.
  • Other terms – Gibbous – the half way between new moon and full moon – Waxing Gibbous is from First Quarter to Full, Waning Gibbous is after a full moon going the other way, to the Last Quarter. How can you tell which?  One is on the right side, one is on the left side.

 

31 January 2018




Listen Live!
Up Next