The moon will have an unusual copper tint on Saturday night. Why, you may ask. Well, it is because there will be a lunar eclipse. A lunar eclipse is when the sun, the moon, and the Earth are all lined up, and the moon travels into the cone of the shadow that is casted by the Earth. The moon does not become invisble when this happens, the moon appears as a dark copperish color because of the residiual light that is reflected to the Earth. This will last for about 77 minutes (from about 22:40 to 23:57 GMT) on Saturday night.
Lunar eclipses usually occur every couple of years. The last one happened on October 28, 2004. But if you miss the one on Saturday another is expected to happen on August 28. This eclipse is unique becasue it will be visible from every continent around the world. According to NASA, the partial eclipse is sheduled to begin at 4:30 pm, while the total eclipse is expected to begin at 5:44 and last until 6:58 pm. The total eclipse is expected to end at 8:11 Eastern Standard Time.
sources: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/OH2007.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070301/sc_afp/spaceastronomyeclipsemoon
This hasn’t happened for 3 years, and now it’s happening twice in a couple of months? That seemed strange to me, so I looked up some info. It looks like there usually is the space of many months or a few years between a total lunar eclipse, and then there are 3 or 4 in uninterrupted succession. Very interesting!
http://www.mreclipse.com/Special/LEprimer.html
I am thought the same thing Mike did when I read your post. I wonder why two would be happening so close when they usually occur every couple of months. It is really strange to actually see one of the eclipses.