PAIf you thought January was going to be uneventful, drab and boring, then you never considered the fact it’ll host one of the moon’s most unique nights.
NASA are advising punters to head out into the street on 31 January to catch the super blood moon eclipse.
The combination of a blood moon, a Supermoon and total lunar eclipse have not occurred in 150 years.
The moon will appear larger, nearer and 30 per cent brighter than usual – there’ll also be a lunar eclipse, leaving the whole turning a deep shade of red, thus being given the name ‘blood moon.’
As per the website Space:
A Blue Moon is when two full moons happen in the same calendar month; lunar eclipses occur when the moon passes into Earth’s shadow; and supermoons happen when the moon’s perigee — its closest approach to Earth in a single orbit — coincides with a full moon.
In this case, the supermoon also happens to be the day of the lunar eclipse.
They add:
Not every place on Earth will see the Blue Moon this month, because the second full moon of January won’t technically appear in those places until 1.
These places include regions in eastern Asia and eastern Australia, where skywatchers won’t see the first full moon until 2 Jan and the next full moon until the morning of 1 Feb.
For example, in Melbourne, Australia, the full moon arrives on Jan. 2 at 1:24 p.m. local time, and the next full moon is on 1 Feb at 1:26 am, so skywatchers will technically miss the Blue Moon by less than 2 hours.
PexelsTo conclude, the website states:
Blue Moons are not as rare as the old saying ‘once in a blue moon’ implies; they happen about once every 2.7 years, because the number of days in a lunation (new moon to new moon) is a bit less than the usual calendar month — 29.53 days as opposed to 31 or 30 days (except for February, which has 28 days, so a blue moon cannot occur).
A sequence of 12 lunations adds up to 354.36 days, against the 365.24 days in a year – the discrepancy adds up over time, until a year will have 13 lunations as opposed to 12.
For some observers, 2018 will feature two Blue Moons — one in January and one in March, with no full moon in February.
Africa, a large percentage of the Americas, along with the UK, won’t see the eclipse but will be able to view it through streams.
It’s not perfect, but I’ll take it. Kinda like Carling or Fosters.
