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Science

A Super Blood Moon Dazzles Earthlings (nytimes.com) 15

Australians were among those lucky enough to see it on Wednesday evening, a rare astronomical event marked by a dazzling array of sunset colors like red and burnt orange: a "super blood moon." From a report: From Brazil to Alaska, California to Indonesia, people with the right view of the celestial phenomenon marveled as their moon, usually a predictable, pale, Swiss-cheese-like round in the sky, was transformed into a fierce, red giant. As one Twitter user, words failing, put it: "Man I'm in love with this urghhh." The striking display was the result of two simultaneous phenomena: a supermoon (when the moon lines up closer than normal to our planet and appears to be bigger than usual), combined with a total lunar eclipse, or blood moon (when the moon sits directly in the Earth's shadow and is struck by light filtered through the Earth's atmosphere).

"A little bit of sunlight skims the Earth's atmosphere," said Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist and cosmologist based at the Australian National University in Canberra, the country's capital. He said this creates the effect of "sunrise and sunset being projected onto the moon." Depending on your vantage point and the amount of dust, clouds and pollution in the atmosphere, Dr. Tucker added, the moon appears pink-orange or burned red or even a brown color. "A super poo moon doesn't really have the same ring," he said. Sky gazers in eastern Australia caught the eclipse beginning around 6:47 p.m. local time Wednesday, with it peaking by 9:18 p.m., while those in Los Angeles were to see the action beginning at 1:47 a.m. Pacific time. In Australia, some took to the skies on a special flight to see the supermoon. It left Sydney about 7:45 p.m. and was to return later that evening. Vanessa Moss, an astronomer with Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, and the guest expert on the flight, said this kind of phenomenon was exciting because it was accessible.

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A Super Blood Moon Dazzles Earthlings

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    There will be an annular solar eclipse next month. That's the cool shit.
    • Paywall (Score:2, Insightful)

      Stop posting paywalled shit. Binspam.

    • Yeah, I have to admit, I'm puzzled why this lunar eclipse is all over the news. There are at least two lunar eclipses every year, and unlike solar eclipses (which are viewable from only a very small portion of the Earth), a lunar eclipse is visible from half the planet. Why the fuss?

      I think it's because the media discovered that they can call it a "blood moon" (who the heck invents these terms?), as well as a "supermoon" (meaning it's about 5% closer than average, which enough to notice, barely, if you're

    • It really wasn't that impressive compared to a standard eclipse. I re-posted a photo I took of the 2014 blood moon and no-one even noticed. It was a neat eclipse, but nothing more than a standard eclipse.
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  • by Chelloveck ( 14643 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @02:59PM (#61428744)
    Watch out! This means that vampires will be especially dangerous! Or is that werewolves? Dammit, do I have to carry extra garlic or wolfsbane!?
  • just making up these names now? Blood moon? Super blood moon? Anything to do with the blood moon dance in Borat 2?

  • Buzz word moons! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @03:11PM (#61428794)
    The moons gets a tiny fraction larger and even might change hue a little bit but every single one of these 'events' are a complete disappointment compared to how much press and news is spread using photos made with extreme telescoping lenses that make the moon appear as if it is significantly bigger than normal, bigger than giant statues or castles. In reality almost no one notices the minute differences in size of the moon in the sky when viewed normally. It really shows you how media can blow things out of proportion, literally, in order to get clicks.
  • A super menstruating beaver moon?
  • The mice [youtube.com] were active last night.
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  • It looked fantastic.

    Also there was a UFO, as fast as a satellite that did a whole lot of moving across the sky. From the west heading east, then turned south, turn west again did a whole bunch of moving around in one spot, then turned south before turning east and then off it went.

    Nope, I couldn't be bothered taking photos because it was hard enough getting decent shots of the moon.

    Besides UFOs don't exist.

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

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