A Supermoon, Blue Moon and Total Lunar Eclipse Will Coincide Tonight

That hasn't happened in more than 150 years.

Bloodmoon. (Wikipedia)
Bloodmoon. (Wikipedia)

It will be worth your while to look up at the sky tonight. For the first time in 152 years, you will be treated to both a visible supermoon, which is a full moon at its closest orbital point to Earth, and a total lunar eclipse. Since it is the second full moon of the month, it is also a blue moon. As Quartz writes, since this hasn’t happened in over a century and a half, there are people who lived and died on this Earth “without ever having had a chance to see this phenomenon, which won’t appear again for another decade.” The supermoon is also the final one in a supermoon trilogy. Visible supermoons appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than full moons that occur at the farthest point in the moon’s orbit. Totally eclipsed moons are sometimes called “blood moons.” The best time to enjoy a supermoon is right after moonrise and before sunrise, when the moon is on the horizon.

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