admin
Herald Reporter
Zimbabweans up early yesterday morning would have just seen a total eclipse of the moon, a “blood moon” shortly before the moon set.
There is a total eclipse of the moon when the sun, earth and moon are in a straight line with the moon inside the earth’s shadow. They can only occur when the moon is full and, unlike a solar eclipse, are fully visible across half the earth, the half facing the moon at the time of the eclipse.
Yesterday’s eclipse would have started soon after 3.30am when the moon entered the partial shadow of the earth, known as the penumbra, and started to darken slightly. Things became easier to see an hour later when the moon started entering the actual shadow, and was darkening more in the partial eclipse stage. By 5.30am the whole of the moon was in the earth’s shadow and it started turning red.
This was maintained as the moon moved towards the western horizon and moonset.
In theory the most intense part of the eclipse would have been at 6.14am just before moonset at 6,17am but that would have been difficult to see, but anyone up from soon after 5.30am would have seen the red moon in the full eclipse stage, but probably just missing the most intense stage.
The red colour is a result of the dust in atmosphere blocking the blue light waves, but allowing the red light waves to go through.
Yesterday’s eclipse was of a “super moon”, that is when the full moon is brighter than the average full moon because the full moon coincides with the day when the moon comes closest to the earth on its monthly orbit.
The last lunar eclipse was on 19 November last year, but the moon had set for Zimbabwe before much could be seen. The next lunar eclipse is on 8 November this year, but regrettably the moon will be over the Pacific when this peaks, so Zimbabwe will miss almost everything.
Lunar eclipses are not rare. There are usually around two or more a year, and while in some the moon will be on the other side of the earth when the eclipse occurs we can usually expect to see at least one every two years in Zimbabwe.
Online Reporter