If skies clear, lunar eclipse to be visible Sunday
It may be worth missing some sleep Sunday night to catch a lunar eclipse that scientists have dubbed a “super blood wolf moon.”
“This year is a very important year for the moon,” said Noah Petro, a research scientist at NASA’S Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the project scientist for NASA’S Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. “We have this eclipse. We have a spacecraft orbiting the moon that’s been there now for 10 years. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon.”
The eclipse will begin at 10:34 p.m., then go into a full eclipse at 11:41 p.m. Sunday. The full eclipse will last 62 minutes. The total eclipse will be visible throughout North and South America, Europe and western Africa, depending on local weather conditions, according to timeanddate.com.
The National Weather Service in Wilmington said that viewing the eclipse in central Ohio could be iffy. Low clouds from the winter storm expected to pass through this weekend could linger, the NWS said.
The super in the eclipse’s description refers to the fact that the moon will be at perigee, or at its closest point to Earth. “It’s close, but it’s not going to be the size of a basketball held right in front of your face,” Petro said.
Terry Mann, vice president of the International Dark-sky Association Ohio and chairwoman of the Great Lakes Region of the Astronomical League, said she thinks the difference is hard to notice.
“I don’t see it. Maybe other people can see it. But in all the years I’ve been watching the moon, you can never really tell that it’s so much bigger and brighter,” she said.
The blood part of the name refers to the color the moon takes on when it’s fully eclipsed.
“The moon is behind the Earth and the sun. So the Earth is blocking the sunlight from reflecting off the lunar surface. The light that does reach the surface of the moon is light that is scattered through the Earth’s atmosphere,” Petro said.
If you orbited the moon and looked back at Earth, you would notice a red ring around Earth, he said.
“The red color from the eclipsed moon is a projection of all the sunrises and sunsets on the moon’s surface,” Petro said.
Different cultures sometimes have different names for full moons. Full moons in January are known as wolf moons, Mann said.
“Because the wolves are hungry and you will hear them howl in the wild,” she said.
Mann said she will be watching the forecast to determine if there will be clear skies Sunday night.
“If I think I can drive out from under the clouds, say within a six- or eight-hour drive, chances are I’m going to hit the road,” said Mann, who resides in Eaton.
Some will be celebrating the eclipse.
Wayne Schlingman, director of Ohio State University’s Arne Slettebak planetarium, said he likely will open up the planetarium for students if the skies are clear.
“When we see the moon and it starts to begin fading as it is going into the Earth’s shadow and then when it hits the central part of the Earth’s shadow, it will basically look like an Oreo that’s being eaten,” he said.
The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton will host a watch party that will include a game about werewolf movies and moon trivia.
If it’s overcast in central Ohio, as it was during the solar eclipse in 2017, the eclipse can be viewed online at www.timeanddate. com/live/. NASA sometimes streams eclipses and hosts live interviews with researchers. If the government shutdown continues, however, that won’t happen.
“This has not been defined as one of the ‘accepted activities’ for NASA,” said Petro, who is on furlough due to the partial federal shutdown.
The next full lunar eclipse that could be visible in the Columbus area won’t occur until 2021.