LIFE

US and Asia Twitter users capture stunning ‘blood moon’

9 Oct 2014

Blood moon. Image via Johannes Schedler (Panther Observatory).

As the second of this year’s total lunar eclipses unfolded in the skies above the US and Asia yesterday, Twitter users managed to take amazing photos of the resulting ‘blood moon’.

While skygazing enthusiasts in Ireland were unable to see the eclipse, US space agency NASA offered them, and others around the world, the chance to view the eclipse online through a live webstream. For those on the ground where the eclipse was visible, however, the view was something to behold as our moon passed behind Earth’s shadow.

The distinctive red colour that gives the blood moon its name happens when the remaining sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere is scattered, eliminating all but red as the remaining colour seen on the moon’s surface.

People in Asia and North America won’t have to wait long for a chance to see the next eclipse, at least a partial one, due to occur in two weeks’ time on 23 October.

Meanwhile, Ireland will have to wait that little bit longer, as the next total eclipse to be visible in Europe is to occur on 20 March 2015.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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