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posted by janrinok on Friday January 05 2018, @06:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the still-waiting-for-the-hyper-ultra-mega-turbo-moon dept.

According to a report at phys.org, The moon is about to do something it hasn't done in more than 150 years:

Three separate celestial events will occur simultaneously that night, resulting in what some are calling a super blue blood moon eclipse. The astronomical rarity hasn't happened for more than 150 years.

A super moon, like the one visible on New Year's Day, is the term for when a full moon is closest to the Earth in its orbit, appearing bigger and brighter than normal.

On Jan. 31, the moon will be full for the second time in a month, a rare occasion—it happens once every two and a half years—known as a blue moon.

To top it off, there will also be a total lunar eclipse. But unlike last year's solar eclipse, this sky-watching event isn't going to be as visible in the continental United States. The best views of the middle-of-the-night eclipse will be in central and eastern Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia, although Alaska and Hawaii will get a glimpse, too.

For the rest of the U.S., the eclipse will come too close to when the moon sets for the phenomenon to be visible.

Because of the way the light filters through the atmosphere during an eclipse, blue light is bounced away from the moon, while red light is reflected. The eclipsed moon's reddish color earned it the nickname blood moon.

Super blue blood moon?

So, an extremely noble or socially prominent moon? ;)

I wonder what differences, if any, there would be in the appearance of the Earth from a person standing on the moon, compared to a "normal" full moon?


Original Submission

Related Stories

Daily Telescope: a Solar Eclipse from the Surface of Mars 3 comments

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/daily-telescope-a-solar-eclipse-from-the-surface-of-mars/

Good morning. It's February 12, and today's image is a real treat from the surface of Mars.

In it we see the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, passing in front of the Sun.

[...] NASA released a bunch of these raw images last week, and planetary scientist Paul Byrne helpfully put them into a video sequence that can be seen here.

[...] Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

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Annular Solar Eclipse October 2023 and Total in April 2024 - 20231002
NASA's Perseverance Rover Captures Video of Solar Eclipse on Mars - 20220422
How to Watch Rare "Ring of Fire" Solar Eclipse - 20210609
Coming Jan 31st: a Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse - First Time in 150 Years - 20180105


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 05 2018, @06:35PM (6 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Friday January 05 2018, @06:35PM (#618431) Journal

    Call it whatever you like—a blue red moon, a purple moon, a blood moon—but the moon will be a special sight on Jan. 31

    You know, dear editors, that some times a story just ages out.

    In this case better never than late.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by frojack on Friday January 05 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Friday January 05 2018, @06:37PM (#618432) Journal

      I doubt we have any readers in central and eastern Asia, Indonesia,

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 05 2018, @07:09PM

        by Freeman (732) on Friday January 05 2018, @07:09PM (#618441) Journal

        I don't know, they could be using a VPN to read our insightful comment.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:19PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:19PM (#618449)

      I'm a time traveler, you insensitive clod!

      (Oh, and stay away from major cities this year! Riots in every major city!)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @07:56AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @07:56AM (#618669)

      For longer than mankind has had the capacity to gaze at the night sky, and wonder about the lights in they sky, that rock has been there, going around, and around, in a slightly eccentric orbit. It doesn't know anything about a recently invented calendar, or blues, or reds, or even about eclipses. It just stays in it's orbit, and does what it is supposed to do - which is nothing. Unless, of course, existing is something.

      Yet, we gaze at that bigass rock, and imagine all sorts of things about it.

      Super blue blood lunar eclipse? Surely, that must be a portent of SOMETHING. Ahhh, yes, it is a portent of confusion and mass hysteria among the naked upright mammals on earth. Nothing to see here, no moons have been harmed, no intelligent creatures have been discomfited.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 06 2018, @12:58PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 06 2018, @12:58PM (#618733) Journal

        Apart from the "blue" part, this hasnothing to do with calendars.

        The "super moon" is related to the excentricity of the moon's orbit. And the "blood moon" is related to the relative alignment of the orbits of earth and moon, and the fact that the earth has an atmosphere which bends light.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @06:38PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @06:38PM (#618433)

    I wonder what differences, if any, there would be in the appearance of the Earth from a person standing on the moon, compared to a "normal" full moon?

    You mean besides the solar eclipse going on?

    (From the moon, you'd see the earth obstructing the sun, i.e. a solar eclipse.)

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:18PM (#618448)

      NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio has covered this before [nasa.gov], wouldn't be surprised if they do a similar visualization for the upcoming eclipse, but it'll look pretty similar, aside from which side of Earth is facing out.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday January 05 2018, @07:25PM (5 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday January 05 2018, @07:25PM (#618453) Journal

    I wonder what differences, if any, there would be in the appearance of the Earth from a person standing on the moon, compared to a "normal" full moon?

    Super: When the Moon is closer to the Earth, the Earth is closer to the Moon. So the person on the moon would see a lightly larger Earth than otherwise (a Super Earth?)

    Blue: That's just a calendar thing; a Blue Moon looks exactly like any other full moon. And the blue Earth will not look different from any other "New Earth" (Earth showing its dark side to the moon) either.

    Blood Moon: Since the red light is shining on the Moon, I expect the person on the Moon would see the ground around him as red lit as well. And of course much darker, due to the solar eclipse. However I'd expect the solar eclipse to be quite spectacular, with the border of the Earth glowing in bright red.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday January 05 2018, @07:31PM (1 child)

      by NewNic (6420) on Friday January 05 2018, @07:31PM (#618459) Journal

      Exactly.

      A blue moon is nothing special astronomically. It's just an artifact of the calendar that we use.

      --
      lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:38AM

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:38AM (#619036) Homepage Journal

        A lot of our magnificent Orthodox Christian friends use what they call the Julian calendar. In which Christmas is just happening now. Merry Christmas to them!

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday January 05 2018, @10:18PM (2 children)

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Friday January 05 2018, @10:18PM (#618540) Journal

      The redness is highly variable - it is usually more orangey or even yellow-y than red toned (it can also be a dull, burning-ember brick red). Every lunar eclipse I've observed and photographed had a VERY visible change in tone to the tangent point closest to the Earth's surface (for example http://static.snopes.com/app/uploads/2017/02/lunar_eclipse_fb.jpg [snopes.com] ). While there's lots of good speculation as to why, nobody is entirely sure why the variations exist as they do. Lots of good possible explanations have been ruled out. And also remember that the redness is entirely the light we're seeing filtered around the planet (best theory is that light is bent around the earth) and then *also* reflected back at us and again passing through our atmosphere. My guess is that on the lunar surface it would just appear as lunar "night" in terms of dimness, and probably more clearly so than the dimness of a solar eclipse on Earth. But I'm just guessing.

      I wouldn't necessarily expect the border of the earth as bright red.... again because the color is from our perspective and not necessarily theirs, but especially because the Earth covers a much wider swath of the Sun's surface during the lunar eclipse than the Moon does during a solar eclipse. (See https://www.space.com/33786-lunar-eclipse-guide.html [space.com] for an idea of the scale of a lunar eclipse. A total solar eclipse, the moon barely covers the Sun's surface). But I'd expect the same edge-closest-to-sun to have a color variation. (If it's not pitch black and I don't think it necessarily would be).

      --
      This sig for rent.
      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 06 2018, @01:10PM (1 child)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 06 2018, @01:10PM (#618737) Journal

        The effect of the light going through atmosphere when coming from the moon and heading towards our eye is in no way different from the effect during a normal full moon (or any other moon phase, for that matter). The colour change relative to the normal moon is purely because of the light that reaches the moon.

        The "returning light" effect makes the apparent moon colour dependent on where on the sky the moon is seen (because, just like the sun, the lower the moon is seen, the more distance its light had to pass through the atmosphere). But that's independent of the "blood moon" effect during eclipse.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday January 08 2018, @06:49PM

          by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday January 08 2018, @06:49PM (#619638) Journal

          I think you're mostly right, and the best theory is that more red-frequency light than blue is able to pass the rim of earth (the same Rayleigh scattering that gives us blue sky I think). There would be a corona around Earth as seen from the Moon (of the same collective color temperature as the moon itself). But I'm also saying don't expect that the surface of the moon around you would appear a blood red color, or even the overall shade your eye perceived when looking at the whole moon from Earth. If you're close to the edge where the tangent is lighting it with more yellow wavelengths, you might see a yellowy surface. If you're at the opposite point it might be duller orange indeed.

          Of all the lunar eclipses I've observed - low in elevation, high in elevation, early evening, midnight, late morning... None of them have been what I'd call red and all of them have had that tangent point of light yellow on one limb. (It's still totally awesome to watch the progression of the eclipse across the lunar surface through a telescope or with imaging. :) ) Others have historically observed exactly that, though. NASA suggests the redness is from the amount of dust in the atmosphere that would scatter the yellow/orange frequencies also. (Same as a dusty sunset...)

          I was also enlightened by both your post and these very interesting pages: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/dec2011-eclipse.html [nasa.gov] and https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4341 [nasa.gov] . Apparently the Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter can't run camera during the eclipse period but did run a Radiometer to measure surface temperature change. And I find it fascinating (though easily understandable) that you get instant lunar "night" temperatures during the eclipse - again on those pages.

          --
          This sig for rent.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:29PM (17 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:29PM (#618458)
    The Earth is Flat! The Lunar Eclipse is faked by the Global Conspiracy!
    • (Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Friday January 05 2018, @07:36PM (4 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday January 05 2018, @07:36PM (#618464) Journal

      A lunar eclipse is when they replace the lamps illuminating the moon. They do it on a fixed schedule, that's why the eclipses are predictable. ;-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:46PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:46PM (#618479)

        Why don't they just replace them after moonset when the moon's not visible from anywhere on the surface of this flat earth?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:13AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:13AM (#618673)

        So, the Japanese are involved? Americans and most of Europe are unable to run trains on time. The Japanese, whatever other faults they may have, can run a train on time.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:54PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:54PM (#618483)

      Do watch the eclipse closely. Videos can help you see what to look for.

      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday January 05 2018, @08:01PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday January 05 2018, @08:01PM (#618487) Journal

        Do watch the eclipse closely.

        I don't think there's a flight to the moon planned that day. Not that you'd have had any chance to get on it anyway. ;-)

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 05 2018, @09:39PM (1 child)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 05 2018, @09:39PM (#618530) Journal

        Do watch the eclipse closely. Videos can help you see what to look for.

        And of course, you can't tell us what to look for else the Freemasons would change the procedure and stop making that mistake, right?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @02:39AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @02:39AM (#618597)

          It's obvious to anyone who looks. So look.

      • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:52AM

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:52AM (#619038) Homepage Journal

        They say not to watch the eclipse without the special glasses. Or something bad will happen to your eyes. I watched it without the glasses. Then I watched it through the glasses. And my eyes are fine, folks. No problem there, I guarantee it. But those glasses look very STUPID!

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by isostatic on Friday January 05 2018, @08:11PM (2 children)

      by isostatic (365) on Friday January 05 2018, @08:11PM (#618491) Journal

      It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

      Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

      Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

      Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @08:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @08:28PM (#618495)

        *clap* *clap* *clap*

        Bravo

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @09:11PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @09:11PM (#618519)

        Amen, Brother/Sister

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @08:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @08:53PM (#618509)

      The Lunar Eclipse is faked by the Global Conspiracy!

      No, no, no! Parent is obviously a NASA employee spreading disinformation! Lunar eclipse is caused by the shadow object [tfes.org].

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:48AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:48AM (#618682)

      Fucking idiot. Flat earth? THERE IS NO GLOBAL THEN!! If there is anything global about the earth, that blows your flat earth away. Fucking idiot. It should be against the law for people to speak, or write, if they don't understand the words they use. Go back to your cave, and practice grunting. Give it a couple million years, you might be ready to join Modern Man again. Geeez, stupid people. They walk among us, and you can't recognize them until they speak!!

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 06 2018, @01:14PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 06 2018, @01:14PM (#618738) Journal

        Err … I'm pretty sure a function defined on a flat Euclidean plane can have a global maximum.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday January 07 2018, @07:15AM

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday January 07 2018, @07:15AM (#619041) Homepage Journal

        Global means they're everywhere. Like the ones who knocked down the World Trade Center. The 7-11 attack. It wasn't one guy. It was many, many guys. And thousands of Muslims celebrated. DISGUSTING!

  • (Score: 2) by terrab0t on Friday January 05 2018, @07:38PM (2 children)

    by terrab0t (4674) on Friday January 05 2018, @07:38PM (#618467)

    The best views of the middle-of-the-night eclipse will be in central and eastern Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia, although Alaska and Hawaii will get a glimpse, too.

    I sure hope there are some people in Japan with nice cameras to capture this for us.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @07:43PM (#618476)
      Those people are usually called "astronomers."
    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 05 2018, @10:26PM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday January 05 2018, @10:26PM (#618541) Journal

      I feel old. I reflexively think I have to travel to see this stuff, just like anyone would have had to, in the 1980s. Or wait for magazines to print a few stills.

      But now, with the rise of the Internet and cell phone cameras and cheap computerized motorized amateur telescopes that automatically track stars, can tune into live streaming video of these astronomical events from the comfort of home. I mean, oh noes, if you missed the 2012 Venus transit, there won't be another until 2117! Except, if we want to see a Venus transit that much, we could put a telescope into a place such as the Sun--Venus L2 Lagrange point that would see one constantly. But why bother, when we could put a probe in so many more interesting places, such as, in orbit about Venus? Can of course watch recordings of the 2012 or the 2004 transit.

  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday January 05 2018, @08:43PM

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Friday January 05 2018, @08:43PM (#618504)

    The moon isn't doing anything! It's everything else's fault with the proportion of responsibility and fault equal to the product of everything elses' masses, inversely proportional to the distance between them! (I'm sure I stated that incorrectly, but you get what I mean)

  • (Score: 2) by clone141166 on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:26PM

    by clone141166 (59) on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:26PM (#619112)

    Cool

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