‘SUPER WOLF BLOOD MOON’ RISING
Sunday’s total lunar eclipse will have a little something extra
On Sunday night, the heavens will dangle a celestial treat for the Americas: a super wolf blood moon.
Actually, that’s not what astronomers call it, but “super wolf blood moon” is a catchy moniker for the rest of us.
Simply put, this will be a total lunar eclipse. With benefits.
“There are actually three different things going on there,” explained John Wright, astronomer and science educator at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News.
First is the “super” part. Again, it’s not a scientific designation, but a “supermoon” is the full moon that swings closest to Earth during its elliptical orbit, or at perigee. This makes it appear larger than average, albeit by only about 7 percent.
The second part also isn’t scientific, but rather, delves deep into folklore.
“Nobody knows for sure exactly where that name comes from,” said Wright, “but the ‘wolf moon’ is always associated with the first full moon in January.
“It’s not too hard to imagine our ancestors, several thousand years ago at night in January — the deepest, darkest, coldest time of the year, when the nights are the longest and the days are the shortest — spending your nights worrying about whether you’re going to make it through the winter. And all night long you’re hearing the wolves howling outside and circling.”
Lastly, a “blood moon” signifies the ruddy cast of the lunar surface during a total eclipse.
This part is scientific: The color occurs because the Earth, posi-
tioned between the sun and moon, blocks out sunlight from the lunar surface.
If you were standing on the moon at peak eclipse, you’d see a dark Earth rimmed in a fiery display of sunrises and sunsets.
That fiery light bends or refracts and hits the moon’s surface, turning it the telltale rusty red.
So the super wolf blood moon, said Wright, “is a big, long, confusing name that just means it’s going to be a very pretty eclipse, and it occurs at a wonderful time of year.”
The hitch for Hampton Roads is that we might not get a chance to see it: The forecast is for rain Sunday. If clouds persist into the evening, then the super wolf blood moon will be a bust here.
Weather permitting, though, the eclipse will be total and high in the sky for all of North and South America.
“This is one of the easiest astronomical events that anybody can observe,” said Wright, “because it doesn’t take anything special at all, other than the gumption to put on a coat and go out at midnight in January to watch it happen.”
In our time zone, the eclipse will begin at about 9:36 p.m. and last about five hours.
“But that very first moment,” Wright said, “nobody’s going to notice.”
Gradually, Earth’s shadow will take bigger and bigger bites out of the moon until, about two hours later, at 11:41 p.m., the eclipse will be complete. It will peak at 12:16 a.m. Monday for the “absolute best” viewing, he said.
Then the slow cycle will reverse as the moon separates from the Earth’s shadow. And, by 2:48 in the morning, the eclipse will be over.
Chris Benner, astronomer and professor emeritus at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, said this eclipse is also special because it will occur when the moon is overhead, not hovering near the horizon where viewing is more difficult.
And the timing is propitious — beginning in the late evening and on what, for many, is a three-day weekend to mark Martin Luther King Day.
“So it’s an opportunity for children to see it,” Benner said. “An opportunity to see it very high in the sky. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a lunar eclipse this high in the sky, and I’ve seen a lot of them.”
This one is also fairly rare, he said, because it’s the third total lunar eclipsewithinoneyear—thefirsttwo occurred in January and July 2018. Total lunar eclipses average a little less than one a year. There won’t be another total eclipse until May 2021. The next one visible from the U.S. won’t occur until Nov. 8, 2022.
NASA TV typically live-streams important eclipses, but with the ongoing partial shutdown of the federal government, it’s unclear if Sunday’s event will be covered.
If viewing is obscured by the weather on Sunday, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California recommends checking online for live-streams, including at timeanddate.com.
“It’s only once every few years that we get a really excellent full eclipse like we’re going to have on the 20th that’s visible from right here where we live,” Wright said.
“So I’ll be out with my neighbors, sitting in the front yard, either watching it happen or cursing the rain.”