Cape Canaveral, Florida (AP) — A total lunar eclipse will decorate the night sky this weekend, providing North and South American stargazers with longer-than-usual thrills.
The movement of the celestial body unfolds from Sunday night to early Monday morning, and the moon is immersed in the reflected red and orange shades of the Earth’s sunset and sunrise for about an hour and a half. This is one of the longest times in 10 years. The so-called blood month is the first in a year.
All observers in the eastern half of North America and Latin America will secure the best seats throughout the show, as weather permits. Partial stages of the solar eclipse are found throughout Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Omitted: Alaska, Asia, Australia.
“This is really a solar eclipse in the Americas,” said Noa Petro of NASA, a planetary geologist who specializes in the moon. “It will be a treat.”
He said all he needed was “patience and eyeballs.”
A total solar eclipse occurs when the Earth passes directly between the Moon and the Sun and casts a shadow on our constant cosmic companions. The moon is 225,000 miles (362,000 kilometers) away at the peak of the solar eclipse — midnight on the east coast of the United States.
“This is a great, gradual, slow event and you can see it as long as you know where you are,” Petro said.
If not, NASA Solar eclipse live stream From various places. So is the Observatory’s Slooh network.
There is another long total lunar eclipse in November, and Africa and Europe are once again lucky, but the Americas are not. Next is until 2025.
The NASA asteroid-seeking Lucy spacecraft launched last fall is 64 million miles (103 million kilometers) away from this weekend’s event as ground controllers continue to work to repair loose solar panels. I will shoot from the place where I was.
Geologist Jessica Watkins, an astronaut from NASA, plans to set an alarm clock on the International Space Station early.
“Hopefully we can be in time, in the right place at the right time and get a good glance,” she told The Associated Press earlier this week.
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The Associated Press’s Department of Health Sciences is supported by the Science Education Department of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.
