Last night, a ‘supermoon eclipse’ was seen from many parts of the world including the US, South America, Europe, Africa, and part of Asia. The partial lunar eclipse lasted for over an hour where the moon had a shadow cast over it.
It started with quite a dramatic full moon rise. Earth’s full ‘harvest moon’ began the journey into Earth’s shadow in space. This process dimmed the moon within the space of 91minutes. The moon was occupied by a part of the shadow of the earth called the umbra for of time when the moon was completely eclipsed.
For 62 minutes, the shadow expanded to grow darkness on about 8% of the moon’s surface. Then the shadow retracted, and the moon recovered its brightness.
Besides, this lunar eclipse is linked to an annular solar eclipse which is scheduled for 2 October. This especially an annular solar eclipse will only be seen along a narrow track from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, southeastern Easter Island, southern Chile, and southern Argentina. This will take up to a maximum of 7 minutes and 25 seconds.
Eclipses do not occur singularly but quite often occur in twos or threes. Within two weeks of new moon occurring, the exact same moon makes its way towards the sun. This is been caused by the moon intersecting the solar systems equator line referred to as the ecliptic.
Due to the new moon being greater than average distance from the earth, the annular eclipse will be observed on October 2, 1986. This is because of the binary nature and the moon’s elliptical ecliptic about the earth. The last previous ‘Full’ Harvest Moon also classified as Supermoon means it was reasonably close than usual distance to the earth.
The next major event that I am going to describe is a total lunar eclipse on the 14th of March 2025 which is also called a “Blood Moon” in the US. A partial solar eclipse will be seen on March 29 2025, in northeastern US states at sunrise which will be preceded by a lunar eclipse.
