The Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse

It is very early in the morning on the first day of winter 2010. For those who stayed up or woke up and ventured outside into the cold winter air and looked up in the sky, you were treated to a beautiful, total lunar eclipse.

A lunar eclipse is when the Moon (always a full Moon) passes into the shadow of the Earth. It could be a penumbral eclipse, where there would only be a slight dimming of the Moon, or a partial eclipse where it looks like a bite has been taken out of the Moon, or a total eclipse where the entire Moon passes into the umbra or the darkest part of the Earths shadow. That is what occurred this morning.

Total lunar eclipses are not rare. They happen three or four times a year. What makes this one special is that it is the first time in 456 years that the total lunar eclipse falls on the winter solstice.

It is also beautiful. To watch the Moon go into shadow and then to turn red is pretty spectacular. It looks red because only the red wavelength of light is refracted around the Earth to hit the Moon. As cool as it looks from Earth, it must be really amazing on the Moon. Imagine standing on the Moon and everything going from grey and white to being bathed in red. Technically from the Moon's point of view this would be a solar eclipse.

Either way, it was worth staying up late into the night to see.

Now for those of you who slept through it or had clouds in the sky, here is what it looked liked.