WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) — In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the moon will begin to darken as the moon passes into Earth’s shadow.
As moon moves directly into the shadow, its face will begin to glow a dim red — Earth’s atmosphere having filtered out the blue wavelengths of the sun’s rays. For this reason, a full lunar eclipse is sometimes called a “blood moon.”
The lunar eclipse will only appear in full form in the western United States, but a partial eclipse will be visible elsewhere in North America. It will be the shortest total eclipse this century, lasting less than five minutes — from 4:58 to 5:03 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The full process — from the shadow’s first appearance to its last — will last roughly 3.5 hours.
NASA put together a helpful world map of the lunar eclipse’s appearance, organized by time and place.
The eclipse, which will be streamed live on NASA TV, is the third in a series of four lunar eclipses in a row — a phenomenon known as a “tetrad.”
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