The Blood Moon - by Janae Ma

      The blood moon

Today, the 26th of  May, 2021, is the blood moon. We don’t usually look forward to seeing it. Today I will be explaining why the moon appears to be red on that particular day. It involves history, our earth's eclipse and has something to do with the sunrise and sunset.

In the olden days, the ancient Mayans feared the reason why the moon is turning red is because a monster is eating it so that's why it’s turning red. So, they would usually scream and shout up to the moon. Because it only lasted a few hours, they were convinced it had worked. 

When you look up at a full moon, you will see sunlight tht has reflected off the lunar surface, so if something were to block that sunlight, say, the earth, then in theory, the moon should disappear from view but during a total lunar eclipse when the moon passes through the earth’s shadow, we get a red moon, not a disappearing one. Why?  During a total lunar eclipse there is a red ring around our planet. Everywhere the ring is, it’s either a sunset or a sunrise. 

The earth’s atmosphere is bending the red wave lengths of light around  the planet. So that redness you see during a blood moon eclipse is a combination of every sunrise and sunset on earth, all happening at once. So the moon appears red for the same reason that sunrises and sunsets on earth are red because  of a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering, named after the British physicist John William Strutt, also known as lord Rayleigh, who discovered it in the late 19 century.  

It describes how different colors of sunlight interact with the earth's atmosphere. For example, the daytime is blue because the earth’s atmosphere scatters blue light more easily than red, but during sunrise and sunset, the light travels through more of earth’s atmosphere before reaching your eye

                              

which has two consequences. First, it means more overall sunlight is scattered, making the sun appear dimmer. So that's why  you can easily gaze upon the sun at sunset. Compared to a high noon. And secondly more scattering means more blue light is scattered away, leaving the redder wavelengths behind. Similarly, the ring around the earth during a total lunar eclipse is red, because the sunlight travels through a long stretch of earth's atmosphere, from one end of the planet to the other. So rather than fearing the blood moon like the Mayans did, why not think of it as a special moment? Remember, the blood moon has something to do with our earth's eclipse, and has something to do with the sunrise and sunset.

Janae Ma

Year 6