Why eclipsed moon red

RISE —. PHASE —. Tonight's Sky — Change location. US state, Canadian province, or country. Tonight's Sky — Select location. Tonight's Sky — Enter coordinates. UTC Offset:. Picture of the Day Image Galleries. Watch : Mining the Moon for rocket fuel. Queen guitarist Brian May and David Eicher launch new astronomy book.

Last chance to join our Costa Rica Star Party! Learn about the Moon in a great new book New book chronicles the space program. Dave's Universe Year of Pluto. Groups Why Join? Astronomy Day. Unfortunately, in many places including the UK, the Moon will be below the horizon. However, some institutions will be streaming live feeds of the lunar eclipse from their locations. For example, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles will be streaming the whole lunar eclipse for free.

Moon gazers will have a while to wait until the next lunar eclipse. But many may have better luck next year on May 16 , when there will be a total lunar eclipse, visible from the UK in the small hours. Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth. Earth's three shadows. Veteran eclipse watchers will tell you that if you look really hard right at the beginning and just before the end of totality, you may detect a light blue or turquoise band on the Moon's face see image.

This happens because the Earth's Ozone layer scatters red light and lets through some of the blue light that is otherwise filtered out by other layers of the atmosphere. The Moon can take on different shades of red, orange, or gold during a total lunar eclipse, depending on the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere at the time of the eclipse.

The amount of dust particles, water droplets, clouds, and mist can all have an effect on the shade of red. Volcanic ash and dust in the atmosphere can also lead to the Moon turning dark during an eclipse. Fun fact : If you were lucky enough to see a total lunar eclipse from the Moon, you'd see a red ring around the Earth.

In effect, you'll be seeing all the sunrises and sunsets taking place at that specific moment on Earth! Scientists measure the appearance and brightness of a total lunar eclipse using a five-point scale— ranging from 0 to 4— called the Danjon Scale see image. While it has no special astronomical significance, the view in the sky is striking as the usually whiteish moon becomes red or ruddy-brown. The last blood moon on Jan.

The next blood moon will happen during the total lunar eclipse of May 26, , which will be visible from parts of North America, Australia, the Pacific and Asia. As the full moon phase passes through Earth's shadow, viewers will be treated to a celestial sight that won't appear again until May of The previous total lunar eclipse on Jan.

Several partial and penumbral lunar eclipses occurred in between, and NASA has a list of all the lunar eclipses until Here's a list of all the "blood moons" coming up in the next 10 years and the locations where they will be visible:. The moon orbits around Earth, while Earth orbits around the sun. The moon takes about 27 days to orbit Earth and goes through regular phases in a The difference in these two cycles has to do with the relative positions of the sun, Earth and moon, which change during the moon's orbit.

Lunar eclipses can only happen during a full moon, when the sun fully illuminates the surface. Usually a full moon has no eclipse because the moon orbits in a slightly different plane than the Earth and the sun do.