LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28 (UPI) — The rare supermoon eclipse wowed across the evening skies from India to Alaska Sunday night.
A combination of a lunar eclipse and a perigee moon is relatively uncommon and hadn’t been seen since 1982. Though some see it as a sign of the apocalypse, astronomers are thrilled. The event will occur again in 2033.
The phenomenon occurs when the sun, the Earth and the moon line up perfectly so that as the moon orbits the Earth, the moon passes completely through the shadow of Earth. But the moon doesn’t completely disappear in darkness. Enough refracted sunlight around the Earth’s atmosphere — like the light we see at sunset — reaches the moon to give it a reddish color or a so-called “blood moon.”
Combine that with the supermoon, where the moon is seen during the closest part of its orbit around the Earth and the moon can appear14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter.
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