Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Lunar Eclipse: Don't Forget
From The Exponent:
Tonight, the last total lunar eclipse visible to students at Purdue until December 2010 will occur.
Starting at about 8:45 p.m. EST, the moon will begin to pass through the earth's shadow created from the sun, causing a partial lunar eclipse.
According to the NASA Web site, the total lunar eclipse of the moon will occur at 10:01 p.m. EST, and complete totality will last approximately 50 minutes. At this time, the entire moon passes through the region where all direct sunlight to the moon is blocked by the earth.
"Basically, the earth gets in between the sun and the moon," said Marc Caffee, a professor in the physics department. "The moon is in the earth's shadow."
The last total lunar eclipse visible to the United States occurred in August of 2007.
Stronger atmospheric scattering of blue light means that the light that reaches the lunar surface is predominantly red in colour.
That means observers see a Moon that may be brick-coloured, rusty, blood-red or dark grey, depending on terrestrial conditions on the night.
It was a lovely eclipse here just northeast of Hell by the way. Wonderfully clear, but cold as heck. Hell really has frozen over.
The lunar eclipse was great here too. Had a reddish-orange glow. Also freezing cold here on Wednesday night. I saw the eclipse beginning on a my drive home around 8:40pm central time and then later from the window of one of my bedrooms. Went outside to get a look at it too.
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