Super Blood moon on May 15

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The US, South America, and parts of Europe and Africa are set to see a total lunar eclipse that is not only a Flower moon and a Super moon, but also a Blood moon, Michigan Live reports.

The total lunar eclipse will start on May 15 at 10:27 p.m.

According to Mike Narlock, head of Astronomy at Cranbrook Institute of Science, the totality of the lunar eclipse will last from 11:29 p.m. Sunday and until 12:53 a.m. Monday, May 16, MLive said.

The month’s full moon is a super moon, a moon that occurs when it is closest to Earth: on May 15 the moon will be closest to Earth in its orbit, MLive reports. This month’s full moon is also a Flower Moon because spring flowers are blooming. It’s easy to understand why this moon has that name, with our spring bulbs blooming now.

Moreover, this month’s full moon is also a blood moon.

“After the total eclipse stage, the moon goes through the partial and penumbral eclipse stages again until it looks like the typical full moon in the sky,” Tania de Sales Marques, a planetarium astronomer from the U.K.’s Royal Observatory, explained in a recent interview with Newsweek.

“When the moon passes through the Earth’s umbra, direct sunlight is blocked from illuminating its surface. The reason the moon turns red during these moments is that the only light that reaches the moon is sunlight that has scattered as it passed through the Earth’s atmosphere,” Marques said.

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