Total Lunar Eclipse Seen Worldwide As Supermoon Paints The Skies Red, ESO Captures Partial Solar Eclipse in Chile [LOOK]

As the Moon passes into Earth's shadow, a total lunar eclipse is visible in some regions worldwide.

The super flower blood moon will be visible throughout the Americas, Antarctica, Europe, Africa, and the Eastern Pacific on Sunday and Monday.

A penumbral lunar eclipse will occur across New Zealand, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, with the Earth's shadow falling over the Moon.

(Photo : P. Horálek/ESO)
This picture of the week shows the partial solar eclipse that was visible over Chile’s Atacama Desert on 30 April 2022. The photograph was taken in San Pedro de Atacama, above the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). This is near the site of the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), which is co-owned and co-operated by the ESO on behalf of its European partners.

Super Flower Full Moon

Old Farmer's Almanac, which gives Native American names for full moons, said May is recognized as a month when flowers grow in profusion.

According to the almanac, this full Moon is a supermoon. It will coincide with a complete lunar eclipse, which will color the Moon a reddish-brown for approximately an hour and a half, depending on where you are.

The Full Moon in May is a marginal supermoon, according to NASA.

Full moons known as supermoons occur when the Moon's orbit brings it closer to Earth, making it look bigger and brighter.

The same phenomenon that makes the sky blue and sunsets red, Rayleigh scattering, will cause the Moon to seem red.

"That's the great thing about lunar eclipses is that you require no other gear other than a passion and interest in being outside and a clear horizon," Noah Petro, chief of NASA's Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Lab, told CNN (via The Independent).

Eclipse

Lunar eclipses occur when our planet passes its two primary astronomical partners between the sun and the Moon. Because moonglow is actually reflected sunlight, the lunar surface darkens as it approaches Earth's extended shadow.

Joseph Rao, an associate astronomer at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, told The New York Times: "When the moon goes into the shadow of the Earth, it should blackout and disappear."

He added: "Instead, it changes this eerie copper or reddish color."

The phenomenon is due to the Earth's atmosphere refracting sunlight around the planet's borders. All wavelengths save the longest and reddest are filtered out, and the combined light of all the world's sunrises and sunsets is projected on the otherwise gray Moon.

ALSO READ: Total Lunar Eclipse: Super Flower Blood Moon Is The First of 4 Supermoons on Earth in 2022, Retired Astrophysicist Says

According to Rao, the massive black backlit plate of the Earth coming in front of the sun will be seen from the Moon. Our world would appear as a gigantic black circle bordered by a dazzling red ring during totality, while the lunar surface would transform different hues of red, orange, and brown around you.

ESO Captures Partial Eclipse in Chile

In the first partial solar eclipse of 2022, the Moon interrupted the Earth's view just as the sun set below the horizon, briefly obscuring a small section of the sun's circle.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) issued an intriguing collage on May 9 depicting this event. The graphic combines many images taken during the solar eclipse evening to record the Moon's journey in front of the sinking sun.

According to NASA, the most dramatic view of the April eclipse occurred near the southern point of South America, when the Moon obstructed 64 percent of the sun's disk.

The 21 photos that make up the newly revealed collage were taken over the course of 54 minutes. The contour of the Moon appears around halfway through that time and begins to shade the last light of the day.

The ashen low-lit sky, mixed with the arid scenery of Valle de la Luna (meaning Moon Valley in Spanish), creates an unearthly backdrop. The natural dusty look encircling the sun results from the Hunga Tonga volcano erupting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in December 2021. The explosion ejected ash and other debris, some of which were lodged high in the sky.

According to the ESO statement, many skywatchers who spotted the spooky sunset didn't understand what was in store for them.

During the lunar eclipse on April 24, 1967, NASA's Surveyor III spacecraft recorded such wonder on film. However, the photographs are in black and white and of extremely poor quality.

However, with so many new missions set to launch to lunar orbit and the Moon's surface in the future years, one of Earth's robotic explorers may be able to record such a spectacle in color and high resolution.

How to See This Celestial Phenomenon

Those who don't have a good view may always watch the action on NASA's YouTube channel.

The last solar eclipse of the year will occur in 2022. Another partial eclipse will occur on October 25, viewable from Europe, Western Asia, and Northeast Africa.

NASA's asteroid-hunting Lucy spacecraft, launched last year, will photograph this weekend's event from a distance of 64 million miles (103 million kilometers) as ground controllers work to patch a leaky solar panel.

On the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, a geologist, planned to set her alarm clock early.

"Hopefully, we can be up in time and be at the right place at the right time to catch a good glimpse," she told The Associated Press (via CBS News) earlier this week.

RELATED ARTICLE: May 2022 Lunar Eclipse: Super Flower Blood Moon Coming to the Night Sky Sunday; How and When to Watch  

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