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May’s full moon will have stargazers seeing red.
During a full lunar eclipse, the moon passes through the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow – the umbra. When the moon is within the umbra it gets a reddish hue because blue and green light get more easily scattered by dust particles in the atmosphere and orange and red colors remain more visible, according to NASA. Lunar eclipses are sometimes called blood moons because of this phenomenon.
People in South America and in the eastern part of North America were expected to get the best view of the lunar eclipse, said Noah Petro, chief of NASA’s Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Lab, before the eclipse. The total lunar eclipse was visible in much of Africa, Europe and South America and most of North America.
Stargazers around the world turned out to witness and capture the lunar event in images.
While the eclipse peaks for only a short amount of time, Petro said the moon would be bathed in coppery tones throughout the night, making it a particularly interesting celestial phenomenon to watch.
About two lunar eclipses occur each year, and the next will be a total lunar eclipse in November, Petro said. Then there will not be another total lunar eclipse until March 2025, he added.
While the eclipse’s peak may only last for a short amount of time, the moon’s coppery tones will change throughout the night, according to Petro. These changes make this celestial phenomenon interesting to watch throughout the eclipse rather than at a particular moment, he said.
If it’s cloudy or the lunar eclipse is otherwise not available to view, you can watch a livestream of it from NASA.
There will be seven more full moons in 2022, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac:
- June 14: Strawberry moon
- July 13: Buck moon
- August 11: Sturgeon moon
- September 10: Harvest moon
- October 9: Hunter’s moon
- November 8: Beaver moon
- December 7: Cold moon
These are the popularized names associated with the monthly full moons, originating with Native American tribes. The names vary from tribe to tribe because a full moon h