Spring Break
First lunar eclipse of '08 to take place tonight
Taylor Short and Josh Armstrong
Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: NEWS
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NT's Urban Astronomy Center will host a Total Lunar Eclipse Preview Wednesday night from 9-10 p.m. The event will be open to students, faculty, staff and guests.
The eclipse will be visible to most of North America and parts of Western Europe, Western Asia and Africa. During the eclipse, the moon will display striking colors, from bright turquoise to blood red to rusty brown.
The eclipse will be the first of two to occur this year, though only tonight's will be a total lunar eclipse. The next total lunar eclipse will not happen until 2010.
Cheryl Lawler of the physics faculty said the color changes are because of the sunlight passing through the Earth's atmosphere.
"At first, it will look like there's a black bite out of it," Lawler said. "As it reaches totality, it will change to a deep red or brown-orange."
A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is directly between the Sun and the moon. It requires a full moon that passes through some part of the Earth's shadow. Earth's shadow consists of two areas: an outer shadow, called a penumbra, and the inner shadow, the umbra.
As it passes into the penumbra, the moon's edge will begin to look blue. During this early phase, the sunlight is passing through the edge of Earth's atmosphere.
Totality begins once the entire moon enters the umbra. In this phase, the moon is completely cut off from direct sunlight.
"If our planet did not have an atmosphere, the eclipse would be solid black," Lawler said. "But since the Earth does, the atmosphere bends the light so only the long wavelengths, like red and orange light, reach the moon's surface."
Color and brightness can vary. A dark eclipse is caused by volcanic gas and dust in the atmosphere, but since no volcanic activity has occurred recently, Wednesday's eclipse will probably display a bright orange and red hue.
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