If the moon is in the shadow of the Earth, how can we still see it?

If the moon is in the shadow of the Earth during a lunar eclipse, how can we still see it? And why does it become red? The answer has to do with our own sunrises and sunsets. Here is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: A lunar lunar eclipse of blood was not always something to be hoped for. When the moon turned red thousands of years ago, the ancient Mayans and Mesopotamians feared that something monstrous and evil was eating the moon. They were shouting at the night sky trying to repel voracious beasts. And since the average lunar eclipse lasts about 100 minutes, when the moon returns to normal afterwards, they were probably convinced that their screams and screams actually worked. We now know that the moon does not need our protection. But why does it become red in the first place? Every time you look towards the full moon, you see the sunlight reflected on the lunar surface. So, if something were to block the sunlight, say the earth, then, in theory, the moon should disappear from sight. But during a total lunar eclipse, when the moon passes through the shadow of the earth, we get a red moon, not an evanescent moon. So what's going on? To understand it, let's take a quick trip to the lunar surface. This is a NASA simulation of what the Earth looks like during a total lunar eclipse. Notice the red ring around our planet. Wherever you see this ring is either a sunrise or a sunset. And if it is true that no direct solar radiation reaches the lunar surface at this moment, the atmosphere of the Earth bends the wavelengths of red light around the planet. While the redness you see during a blood moon eclipse is a combination of the light of every sunrise and sunset on the earth, everything happens at once. Thus, the moon appears red for the same reason that the sunrises and sunsets on the earth are red, because of a phenomenon called Rayleigh Scattering, named after the British physicist John William Strutt, also known as from Lord Rayleigh. . He describes how the different colors of the sun interact with the Earth's atmosphere. Look at the sky during the day, for example. It appears blue because air molecules in the Earth's atmosphere disperse blue light more easily than red. But at sunrise and sunset, light passes through a larger part of the earth's atmosphere before reaching your eye, which has two consequences. First, it means that sunlight is scattered, making the sun seem darker. That's why you can easily watch the sun at sunset, compared to noon. And on the other hand, more scattering means more blue light is scattered, leaving the wavelengths more red behind. Similarly, the ring around the earth during a total lunar eclipse is red because sunlight travels through a long stretch of Earth's atmosphere, from one end of the planet to the other. # 39; other. So, rather than fearing a blood moon like the ancient Mayans and Mesopotamians, why not think of it as a romantic moment. After all, it's the only time you can see sunrise and sunset simultaneously.