A blood moon lunar eclipse from the Arpoador Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last July. Photo / AP file
A blood moon lunar eclipse from the Arpoador Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last July. Photo / AP file
The celestial curtain will be rising soon on a lunar extravaganza.
The Earth will slide directly between the moon and the sun, creating a total lunar eclipse. There won't be another until 2021.
It will also be the year's first supermoon, when a full moon appears a little bigger andbrighter thanks to its slightly closer position.
The entire eclipse will exceed three hours. Totality — when the moon's completely bathed in Earth's shadow — will last an hour. Expect the eclipsed, or blood moon, to turn red from sunlight scattering off Earth's atmosphere.
January's full Moon is also known as a 'wolf moon', a name deriving from Native American Tribes who said wolves would howl outside villages during full moons at the beginning of the year.
Everyone everywhere can catch the supermoon, weather permitting. But the entire eclipse will be visible only in North and South America, and across the Atlantic to western and northern Europe.
