Stunning Partial Lunar Eclipse Photos Show Moon Appearing Red Around the World
A partial lunar eclipse was visible Thursday night into the early hours of Friday across large swathes of the Earth, and photographers across the world captured the spectacular event.
The partial lunar eclipse was the longest of its kind since 1440, according to NASA, clocking in at three hours, 28 minutes and 23 seconds.
Partial lunar eclipses occur when the full moon passes partway into the dark inner shadow (umbra) that is cast by the Earth. During the eclipse, around 99 percent of the visible face of the moon had moved into this shadow by the peak of the event, making it an almost total eclipse.
As the moon moved into this shadow, the visible face became dimmer. But the moon was not plunged into complete darkness. Instead, it turned a reddish color around the time of maximum eclipse, due to the way that sunlight was being distorted as it passed through the Earth's atmosphere.
Observers in North America were ideally placed to see the whole of the eclipse, depending on local weather conditions. But at least parts of the eclipse were also visible from other regions, including South America, Australia, much of Europe and Asia, and parts of northwest Africa.
In the picture below, captured by photographer Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, the partial eclipse can be seen behind the Statue of Freedom on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. early on November 19, 2021.
This image, snapped by Philip Fong from the observation deck of Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, Japan, clearly shows the reddish hue that the moon took on during the eclipse.
Photographer Yuki Iwamura captured another spectacular shot of the moon on November 19 appearing behind One World Trade Center in New York City.
And in this image, taken from San Salvador—the capital of El Salvador—by photographer Emerson Flores, one portion of the moon appears to be visibly dimmer than the rest as our natural satellite moves through the Earth's shadow.
Lunar eclipses only occur during full moons, although they do not happen on every full moon night.
Partial lunar eclipses occur when the Earth moves between the sun and the full moon, but the three bodies are not precisely aligned—like during a total lunar eclipse. For last night's eclipse, which coincided with November's Beaver Moon, the alignment was almost perfect, but not quite.
The partial lunar eclipse was not the only notable astronomical event this week. The Leonid meteor shower peaked on the night of November 17-18, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS.)
