NASA got some great photos of last night’s (this morning’s) “Blood Moon” that occurred during the total eclipse of the moon (that those of us on the east coast missed because of the clouds).
The photos were taken by a Johnson Space Center employee, and posted to NASA’s Flickr feed.
But first, the Griffith Observatory in LA did a great video, that I posted below, of the eclipse over a 5 hour period. I made a quick animated gif of the video:
The first photo is the eclipse itself – keep in mind that this is a full moon. So the dark part you’re seeing is from the eclipse, where the earth is casting a shadow on the moon.
And here is the so-called “Blood Moon.” Space.com explains that the moon appears red during a total eclipse for the same reason the sunset is red: The sunlight is scattered by passing through the earth’s atmosphere, and all the colors but red are removed.
Space.com also explained that lunar and solar eclipses occur in pairs, two weeks apart from each other. (A solar eclipse is when the move blocks the sun (from our point of view), and thus casts a shadow on the earth. A total eclipse only casts a shadow that’s 166 miles wide.
And here’s a nice shot, also from NASA, of the various phases of the eclipse, including the Blood Moon.
I found an excellent video from the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, the entire eclipse over a 5 hour period. You can just zoom ahead and watch the moon disappear and then turn red, it’s a neat video.
I found a few other YouTube videos purporting to be last night’s Blood Moon. They didn’t get a very bright moon, while red, but you can definitely see it turning red.