Super Blue Blood Moon
It was a very cold night in early December, so cold that I was almost shivering still my passion was at its peak. I captured a few blurry photographs of super moon from my iPhone and stairs down. I have been always been wondering by our celestial neighbor, ‘THE MOON’ which is so close to us that we can not only see it by the naked eye but can also feature on it. However, the supermoon is a spectacular lunar fact when the moon comes to a closer point to the earth while orbiting around, within 90%, making the closest approach in its orbit. That point is known as ‘perigee’ a distance of about 221,525 miles, and in contrast, the astronomers came up a new term of ‘Perigee- Syzygy’ or supermoon (common in use). On average, the moon does happen to locate at about 238,900 miles away from earth, while the farthest orbital point regard as “Apogee” when it is 5% more distant from earth as to “Perigee” is the closest point when it comes 5% closer.
The Dec 3rd moon was the beginning of a supermoon trilogy, followed by the historic supermoon of 14th November 2016, such phenomena will be witnessed next, in 2034. In the meanwhile, the second on which happened 1st of January 2018 at the eve of New Year. But sometimes the celestial rhythms sync up just right to wow us, said NASA. The astronomy boffins will get to hang up a lunar event week – blue moon combined a supermoon, blood moon and lunar eclipse. At 31st of January the second full moon of the same month will appear, known as blue moon which will be about 14% larger and 30% brighter as usual. This supermoon will pass through the earth’s shadow in the right location and provides a spectacular sight of total lunar eclipse while due to earth’s umbral shadow it will appear as reddish dint, known as ‘blood moon’ and together as ‘super blue blood moon’ a very rare lunar trifecta, will have been witnessed in 150 years since 1866 and next will appear in 2168. It is worth mentioning that the resident of Asia, Eastern Russia, Australia and New Zealand can only be seen the super blue blood moon during the moon rise early in the morning at 31st of January, while rest of the world inclusive North America, Alaska, and Hawaii will enjoy a total lunar eclipse before sunrise at the same morning.
Unfortunately, this eclipse would be more challenging for the resident of Eastern Time zone, they could gaze it out at around 5 a.m. at the moon about to set in the western sky. According to earth sky organization January 31st moon will appear at the horizon around 1:27p.m UTC/4:50 GMT and the same as GMT, have a duration of 76 mins of the total lunar eclipse. Some of the best places to watch this total lunar eclipse are Russia, Asia, a few parts of America and northeastern Europe. In Pakistan, the supermoon will be visible just after the sunset which will coincide with those of 3rd Dec and 1st Jan super moons, while the space buffins can gaze the reddish appearance of lunar eclipse in the midnight around 2p.m.
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