TRIPLE TREAT
A blood moon drops behind the mountain overlooking Muizenberg early yesterday morning. The blood moon took place halfway through a total lunar eclipse. A supermoon on Sunday night started the rare celestial event.
Instead of a grey, shadowy disc, the moon turned a coppery red, known as a blood moon
WHILE millions slept, keen eclipse watchers all over South Africa were awake in the wee hours yesterday morning to watch an event that was a triple delight: a supermoon, a blood moon and a total lunar eclipse.
The total eclipse, which could be seen from Africa, Europe and the Americas, began in South Africa at 2.10am and ended at 7.25am.
As the moon passed into the shadow of the Earth, blocking the sun’s rays, its shiny surface was slowly eaten up by shadow until, at around 4.11am, it was totally eclipsed.
But instead of a grey, shadowy disc, the surface of the moon turned coppery red, known to many as a blood moon.
As Nasa described it: “The reason the moon turns red may be found on the surface of the moon itself. Using your imagination, fly to the moon and stand in a dusty crater. Look up.
“Overhead hangs Earth, nightside facing you, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is under way. You might suppose the Earth overhead would be completely dark. After all, you are looking at the nightside of our planet. Instead, something amazing happens: When the sun is located directly behind Earth, the rim of the planet seems to catch fire.
“The darkened terrestrial disc is ringed by every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all at once. This light filters into the heart of Earth’s shadow, suffusing it with a coppery glow. Back on Earth, the shadowed moon becomes a great red orb.”
The full moon yesterday was also a “supermoon”, when the moon is at the perigee of its orbit, the point closest to the Earth.
Because the moon’s orbit around the Earth is not circular but elliptical – rather like a rugby ball – the moon is closer or further away from the Earth at different times in its orbit, making the moon appear slightly larger. Supermoons occur about every 14 full moons.
This is the fourth lunar eclipse in the last two years, known as a lunar tetrad. These tetrads will happen eight times this century.