It’s been a busy week within the cosmos.
Had been you in a position to catch the Perseid meteor bathe earlier this week? When you slept by means of it — or have been met with cloudy skies — worry not! One other spectacular celestial occasion is true across the nook.
On this phase of NHPR’s Cosmically Curious, host Patrick McNameeKing sits down with UNH astronomer John Gianforte to debate an upcoming near-total lunar eclipse. Learn on to search out out when to lookup, what to anticipate because the moon strikes throughout Earth’s shadow, and why you possibly can safely go away your eclipse glasses within the drawer.
Transcript
John Gianforte: Late within the night on August 27, there’s a partial lunar eclipse, however it’s very almost a complete lunar eclipse versus a photo voltaic eclipse. It is the moon that passes into the Earth’s shadow.
Patrick McNameeKing: That is fairly cool. I by no means consider the Earth as having a shadow, however I suppose that is sensible.
John Gianforte: The Earth has type of an interior darkish shadow referred to as the umbral shadow, and an outer lighter penumbral shadow. Effectively, the moon will move fully into Earth’s outer penumbral shadow, however solely a tiny piece of it will not move into the interior umbral shadow. Because it will get deeper and deeper into the eclipse, it will tackle a type of orangish coloration to it, and it will get fairly fairly.
Patrick McNameeKing: Are there any precautions to concentrate on when viewing a lunar eclipse?
John Gianforte: You do not have to fret about eye safety as a result of lunar eclipses are completely secure to view. They occur at evening. Nothing like a photo voltaic eclipse.
Patrick McNameeKing: Nice. So remind me when that is.
John Gianforte: The perfect occasions to view the eclipse are starting at about 10:30 Japanese Daylight Time on August 27.
The utmost eclipse when the moon is in as deeply into the Earth’s shadow as it’ll get, that’ll occur at 12:12, 12:13 a.m. on the twenty eighth of August, and it is not one thing that you’ll miss in 5 minutes. It’ll final a couple of minutes. So if you happen to’re on the market between 12 midnight and 12:30, you are going to see the very best half.
In case you have questions concerning the evening sky, ship us an e-mail, cosmic@nhpr.org.
