Blood Moon Day or the Total Lunar Eclipse of the year 2021 will be visible on May 26 when the Moon passes through Earth’s umbral shadow
The Blood Moon Day or the Total Lunar Eclipse will be visible on May 26 as the Moon passes through Earth’s umbral shadow.
As the event marks the astronomical highlight of 2021, the eclipse will be a combination of a full Moon, a Bloodmoon and a Total Lunar Eclipse.
The Bloodmoon that will be visible on May 26 will be one of the biggest of the year.
Total Lunar Eclipse
A Total Lunar Eclipse comes to fore when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned in a line. The Earth comes in between Sun and the Moon during the eclipse, blocking sun rays from reaching the Moon, casting its shadow on the lunar surface.
Blood Moon?
When the Earth casts its shadow on the Moon, it is partially visible and can be seen through the naked eye.
As earth’s atmosphere bends sunlight and indirectly lights up the Moon’s surface, the colours with shorter wavelengths get scattered due to the refraction of sunlight and get filtered while the higher wavelength colours like orange and red illuminate the Moon’s surface, giving it a reddish-orange glow. This reddish-orange Moon is known as Blood Moon.
Besides Blood Moon, the total lunar eclipse can also be orange or brown in colour depending on various dust particles and different wavelength colours reaching the moon’s surface.