Shortest Lunar eclipse happening this Weekend!
Shortest Lunar eclipse happening this Weekend!
Starting at 3:16 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the moon will begin moving into Earth’s shadow. For the next hour and 45 minutes, that shadow will move across the moon and engulf it at 4:58 a.m. Pacific Time.
The total eclipse will only last four minutes and 43 seconds, and NASA says that makes it the shortest one of the century.
A lunar eclipse happens when the sun, Earth and moon form a straight line in space, with the Earth smack in the middle.
The sun shines on the Earth and creates a shadow. As the moon moves deeper into that shadow, it appears to turn dark and may even appear to be a reddish color. Why red? Because Earth’s atmosphere is filtering out most of the blue light. Some people have nicknamed the effect the “blood moon.”
NASA says lunar eclipses typically happen at least twice a year, but this eclipse is the third in a series of four in a row, known as a “tetrad.”
The first was on April 15, 2014. The second was in September 2014, the next is Saturday, April 4, 2015 and there will be one more, on September 28, 2015.
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