news | The moon will turn red during the total eclipse tonight

By La Provence (AFP)

Some Earthlings will be able to attend To a total lunar eclipse from Sunday night to Mondayan infrequent celestial scene during which the night star loses its luster and gradually turns red.

The eclipse will be visible from parts of the American, European and African continents between moonrise and moonset.

This phenomenon occurs approximately twice a year, when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are in perfect alignment and the Moon is in its full phase. The star slips into the Earth’s shadow, which then blocks the sun’s rays and gradually loses its white glow.

But he doesn’t get out of it all: the Earth continues to send light from the Sun to the Moon, with rays that take on a red color through a process “atmosphere refraction”, explains to AFP Florent Delively, of the PSL Paris Observatory. “During an eclipse, the Earth can only illuminate the Moon by re-emitting red rays“The astronomer continues.”It is very interesting to see a bright white moon that takes on a red color and turns off over the minutes,” he adds. It can be seen with binoculars as well as with the naked eye, and the phenomenon can give “amazing images”If the weather is good.

In the French capital, the eclipse will be at its peak at 6:11 a.m.

The eclipse will last about five hours, and its total phase – when the star is fully in the Earth’s shadow – is just over an hour. “Watching from the West Indies or Guyana would be perfect, because the moon would be high in the skyAccording to the observatory, the eclipse will also be fully visible in South America, Central America, and the eastern part of North America.

In France, the eclipse will be total at the end of the night between 5:29 AM and 6:54 AM, with a maximum at 6:11 AM: the lunar disk will become completely red. Note that the moon will set during this total phase, at the same time as the sun rises. So it will be easier to notice this phenomenon if you are in the west of France, where the sun rises later than the east.

The moon will be very low in the sky and to take full advantage of the eclipse, you will have to choose a place where the horizon is.”cleared to the west”, advises Florent Delively. The next total lunar eclipse is scheduled for November 2022, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In France, Last time back to January 2019 And the next event won’t happen until 2029.

A lunar eclipse shows that the Earth is round.Since ancient times‘Assures the astronomer.’On the surface of the lunar disk, the boundary between the shadow and the part illuminated by the Sun is slightly curved: this is the projection of the Earth’s rotation“.