Getting mooned
Sunday night, a mix of rare lunar events and terminology attributable to Native Americans and apocalyptic fiction culminates with a Super Blood Wolf Moon.
Until a metal band makes good use of the phrase “Super Blood Wolf Moon,” astronomy, folklore and fiction will have to do. Such a moon should be visible on Sunday night, a mix of rare lunar events and terminology attributable to Native American culture and authors of apocalyptic fiction.
Those weird forces come together to form a wicked-sounding phenomenon that has captured the attention of far more people than stargazing professionals.
“It’s funny if you describe what happens with this eclipse to people, kids or adults, you get some blank looks,” says Carolyn Sumners, vice president of astronomy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. “But if you say ‘Blood Moon,’ that does something else. You ask, ‘What’s the scientific word?’ Nothing. Call it a total lunar eclipse, nothing. Call it a ‘Blood Moon,’ and people are there.”
Here’s the breakdown of Sunday’s astronomic event:
The Blood Moon is a total lunar eclipse and occurs with the alignment of the Earth, the sun and the moon, casting the Earth’s shadow across the entire moon. The moon generates no light of its own, and during a total lunar eclipse, the Earth’s atmosphere scatters the sun’s light, particularly the blue and violet hues, leaving more red wavelengths to reach the moon and cast a reddish hue.
The Super Moon is an occurrence of proximity because its orbit around the Earth isn’t perfectly circular. When the moon is at perigee, its closest distance to Earth, it appears more prominently in the sky, an estimated 10 to 15 percent larger.
The Wolf Moon is believed to be a Native American phrase for the first full moon in January. Mostly, it sounds cool, as other old moon descriptions, like Harvest Moon, do.
Actually, none of the three components of the name possess any grand astronomical roots. The phrase “Super Moon” has only been kicking around 40 years. While “blood red” is a common description for the coppery phenomenon of a total lunar eclipse, the phrase “Blood Moon” itself enjoys current chic due to recent religious apocalyptic fiction.
“It’s just the past five years or so
that everybody started calling it a ‘Blood Moon,’ ” Sumners says. “People I know called it ‘brick red.’ But nobody doing what I was doing knew anything about marketing.”
Which isn’t to undermine the rarity of Sunday’s occurrence. The next total lunar eclipse won’t be visible in Houston again until May 2022. And that Blood Moon won’t be a Super Moon.
This particular lunar event should begin shortly after 9:30 p.m., though skygazers may want to punch in a little earlier. The penumbra — the initial shadow cast by the Earth onto the moon should begin around 8:35 p.m. Observers should see the moon dim a little bit before slowly shifting into the umbra, the full shadow of the Earth, which takes place about an hour later. The moon should be fully eclipsed at 10:42 p.m.
Conditions should be good for a viewing, with Saturday’s expected rain having come and gone. That said, it could be chilly and windy outside. Well, Houston chilly.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science will host a viewing party at Brazos Bend State Park, with telescopes provided until midnight. And the Rice University Campus Observatory will also have an open house for viewing.
“Bring something warm to drink, and lots of warm clothes,” Sumners says. “But that’s what’s cool about it.”
She points out that the timing also works well for kids in Houston, with this particular moon occurring the Sunday before a school holiday.
“It’s important to create a memory,” she says. “Usually kids need to be in bed by the time something like this happens. But they have Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. So it’s only halfway through at 11:12 p.m. and not finished until 12:50 the next day, our time. But they can watch it and take notes and sleep in the next day.”