There's a Red Moon on the Rise
One gets the chance to see a blood moon while watching a scary movie. Not that this celestial event ever happens, but it does. Seldom. North America will be treated with such a spectacle on April 15, which is short of being phenomenal.
Known as a lunar eclipse, this event takes place when the moon passes within the Earth's shadow (umbra). When the eclipse begins, the umbra first darkens the moon, slightly. Then it turns dark red-brown, the hue depending on the atmospheric conditions, when the shadow covers a part of it. This is due to the refraction of light, also the same effect that causes sunset to look red. From the first century AD through the year 2013, there have been fifty five such events. This, the 56th, will see the moon passing through the southern part of the Earth's shadow. It will be visible over most of the Western Hemisphere and some parts of the Pacific. What is special about this eclipse is North America will be facing the moon during the eclipse, which means inhabitants (in this continent) can view it from start to finish. This mustn't be missed, as the continent won't witness a full lunar eclipse, in its entirety, until 2019.
"Sometimes they'll happen and you'll have to be somewhere else on Earth to see them," said Noah Petro, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter deputy project scientist at National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Most [residents] of the continental United States will be able to see the whole thing."
The April 15 eclipse marks the start of a lunar tetrad. (Subsequent eclipses will occur on October 8, 2014, April 8, 2015, and September 28, 2015.) This special event occurs when there are four successive total lunar eclipses, with no partial lunar eclipse(s) in between, each of which is separated from the other by six full moons. According to Christian pastors John Hagee and Mark Biltz, these eclipses are signs of significant things to come. For Hagee, founder of Cornerstone Church, he sees them as signs of change in the course of the history of Israel. He noted that the last three tetrads corresponded with important events in Jewish history. (Expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. The re-establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and the Arab-Israeli War that followed. The Six-Day War in 1967.) For Blitz, the final eclipse coincides with the Second Coming. (Take note that this is no different from a visit from a comet, if one reads the history books.) But such prophecy of doom mustn't dampen the enthusiasm, as this can be a life-enriching experience.
"They don't happen all the time, and the sky has to be clear," Petro said. "It really gives you a chance to look at the moon changing."
The eclipse will begin at a later hour, which means one must stay up until the wee hours of the morning. No problem at all.
