Today (May 26) the world will witness the first lunar eclipse of 2021. What makes it more special is that it will be a supermoon, a lunar eclipse and a red blood moon all at once. So what does this actually mean?
Let us first understand Supermoon, Blood Moon and Lunar Eclipse one by one.
What is a Supermoon?
A supermoon is a new or full moon closely coinciding with the perigee, the moon's closest point to Earth in its monthly orbit. Any full moon or new moon that comes to within 224,791 miles or 361,766 km (or less) of our planet, as measured from the centers of the moon and Earth, can be called a supermoon.
So why is it super? The relatively close proximity of the Moon makes it seem a little bit bigger and brighter than usual, though the difference between a supermoon and a normal moon is usually hard to notice unless you’re looking at two pictures side by side.
Why does the moon look red?
When the moon is completely covered in the shadow of the earth, it becomes dark but not completely black. Instead, it looks red, so a full lunar eclipse is also called red or blood moon.
Sunlight has all colors. While passing through the atmosphere of the Earth, the blue light is filtered while the red part passes through it. Therefore, the sky looks blue and redness prevails at sunrise and sunset. In the case of a lunar eclipse, the red light passes through the earth's atmosphere and it turns towards the moon while the blue light remains out of it. This makes the moon look completely red.
What does lunar eclipse mean?
A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is completely or partially hidden in the Earth's shadow. This phenomenon occurs during the full moon.
Like the Earth, half of the Moon is illuminated by the sun at any one time. A full moon happens when the Moon and the Sun are on opposite sides of the Earth. This allows you see the entire lit-up side, which looks like a round disc in the night sky.
But twice in each lunar orbit, the Moon is on the same horizontal plane as both the Earth and Sun. If this corresponds to a full moon, the Sun, the Earth and the Moon will form a straight line and the Moon will pass through the Earth’s shadow. This results in a total lunar eclipse.
