Alignment of the stars: blood moon eclipse and Mars flyover

The heavens are treating astronomers of a show of a variety.

This heavenly co-incident festival presents an eclipsed "blood moon" that shares a sky with the Sun this morning; Mars arriving at its closest point for the next 17 years;

BLOOD MOON FOR BREAKFAST

The event March of yesterday would be followed this morning by another rare event – an eclipsed moon that could be visible on a horizon while the Sun was rising on the sky.

This show, called selenélion, was to take place a few minutes after 8 o'clock in the morning, and could be better seen in the southern regions, provided their sky is clear.

Being able to see the Sun and a lunar eclipse at once could be considered impossible, since these events usually occur when the Sun, the Earth and the Moon were all in a straight line.

But the bending of the rays of light caused by our atmosphere made it possible to see selenelion, as long as we were in the right place.

Because the total lunar eclipse was in progress at the time of the moon and sunrise, there were few views on our planet to make the experience – but New Zealand was fortunately one of them. , Otago and Southland stood to have the best insight, although, even in Auckland, the eclipse would still be partial as the moon disappeared under the horizon.

For those in the Whanganui areas of Wellington, there would be just a small chance (19659013) In Invercargill, there would be five minutes between sunrise at 8:12 and the moon shortly after, with the moon entirely in the shadow of the Earth. the interval would be reduced to four minutes; in Christchurch, three minutes

During the total eclipse – which should begin at 7:30 in the morning – the moon would appear much paler than usual, and stained between dark brown and blood red

The coloring of this so-called "blood moon" – an event wrapped in the old superstition – was due to the sunlight that was crossing the Earth's atmosphere and was reaching the moon

so for the same reason the sky was blue – shorter wavelengths were dispersed more efficiently by the molecules in our atmosphere.

"Although there is a visible lunar eclipse of New Zealand every two years, on average, the right place to see a celestial peculiarity like a selenelion is much less common, and very few people in have seen one, "said Dr. Duncan Steel, of the Space Science Technology Center of Otago

MARS MARVEL

refer to" the opposition "of Mars – something that was happening every two years, when the Earth was directly aligned between Mars and the Sun.

This phenomenon could be explained by the elliptical or oval orbits that E The fact that our planet is closer to Mars, meant that the Earth was accelerating faster in its orbit, making two trips around the Sun at the same time that Mars was only one circuit.) 19659002] Finally, the two planets aligned – but sometimes the match-up was the same. turned out to be a lot more special.

When Mars is a to be closest to the Sun in its orbit, which occurred in a few weeks of opposition, a "perihelian opposition" (19659002) Such events only happened every 17 years – and some of us were closer together than others

The 2003 opposition was particularly significant, being the closest opposition of the last 60,000 years.

The conditions of this year were not so extraordinary, but Mars would still appear only four percent smaller than this show.

It was likely that the next time the two planets would be at perihelian opposition, in 2035, humans would have walked

Mars would not be at its closest point to the Earth until it reached its peak. at around 3:50 pm Tuesday

At that time, we would be at about 57.6 million kilometers, which was much closer than our average distance of 225 million km

And even at this point last month , Mars was still 70.8 million km from us

Interestingly, the event occurred when scientists discovered the first large volume of liquid water on the red. planet

A PLANETARY BANQUET

People may also have noticed five planets – Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars – all together in the evening sky lately.

"It is a co-incidence, fundamentally," "First, if we consider Saturn and Jupiter, Saturn goes around the sun every 30 years, while Jupiter bypbades all 12 years, so for a good deal of time they are on the opposite sides of the sky, and never seen at the same time.

"It just happens that for the moment Jupite R is overtaking Saturn, so they are all the two closest together in the sky at the present time. "

Added to that the unusual cameos of Mercury and Venus – planets that were more typically perched either to the east or west of the Sun.

" Mostly, they are obscured by the brightness, so again, it is relatively unusual to have them in the west sky where people can see them both. "

as was the case, but Venus could still be considered more clearly than normal.

"If this happened in the sky before dawn, we would not pay much attention, but when they are all there at night

Christie said that the combination of all these events was interesting, but nevertheless predictable according to the laws of astronomy.

"It's a pure clock."