Skip to footer

Skywatchers brace for mildly interesting celestial event

The upcoming lunar eclipse won't be flashy or dramatic. It will offer a faint shading of the moon's southern portion. 

|
Orlin Wagner/AP/File
A super moon rises behind a grazing cow in a pasture near Lecompton, Kan., Sept. 27, 2015. A penumbral eclipse will shade a portion of the moon on Mar. 22.

Tired of flashy solar eclipses? The moon has something more subtle prepared: a penumbral lunar eclipse.

Before dawn on Wednesday, a full moon hanging in the sky will be partially obscured by Earth’s shadow. The cosmic event will be visible for much of the globe, although best viewing will be in the Pacific region, including parts of the western United States.

Here's the catch – even if you watch it, you might have a hard time spotting it.

The upcoming eclipse will be a penumbral one. Earth’s faint outer shadow will reach the surface of the moon and partly obscure it, but the darker, heavier inner shadow, the umbra, won’t reach. The result will be only a moderate smudging of the southern portion of the moon.

Certainly less flashy than 2015’s Blood Moon, the penumbral lunar eclipse is still interesting for NASA scientists.

NASA tracks and studies all eclipses. The scientists use the events as opportunities to conduct closer studies on the sun and moon. During the total solar eclipse earlier this month, scientists were able to get a rare glimpse of the sun’s corona, a gaseous envelope around the sun that is much hotter than its surface.

Lunar eclipses offer similar scientific opportunities, according to NASA. Scientists in the past have used the eclipses to gather more data about the composition of the moon. They also measure the temperature of the shaded surface to see how quickly it cools without sunlight.

Non-scientist observers won’t need telescopes or equipment to see the eclipse. The eclipse will start at 2:39 a.m. PDT and last for around four hours, reaching its darkest and most visible point at 4:47 a.m. PDT, according to NASA. Observers will see the southern portion of the moon darken in contrast to the rest of its bright surface.

Observers in Pacific Ocean territories, including New Zealand, Japan, and parts of Australia will be able to see the entire eclipse. But other more eastern parts of the globe will experience sunrise before the eclipse is over. Europe, Africa, and parts of South America will not able to see the event at all, according to NASA.

Don't worry, better eclipse viewing opportunities are coming later this year. September will bring an annular solar eclipse, which will appear like a halo around the moon, and a second penumbral lunar eclipse. The second lunar eclipse of the year will be visible nearly everywhere except North and South America on Sept. 16.

For East Coast skywatchers, Jupiter could offer some solace, as the planet will shine brightly in the eastern sky.

The next total lunar eclipse will be on Jan. 31, 2018, according to NASA.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Skywatchers brace for mildly interesting celestial event
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0322/Skywatchers-brace-for-mildly-interesting-celestial-event
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe