the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, in the early hours of Friday, November 19, 2021 a lunar eclipse known as a “Blood Moon” will be visible from Northern New Jersey.
The eclipse peaks around 4 a.m. Eastern Time on the 19th, the Earth will block 98 percent of the sun’s light from reaching the moon’s surface, washing it in a reddish hue.
A blood moon is a non-scientific description of the Moon’s sometimes-rusty color when it goes through a total lunar eclipse. A total lunar eclipse happens when the Moon travels through the Earth’s umbra and blocks all direct sunlight from illuminating the Moon’s surface. However, some sunlight still reaches the lunar surface indirectly, via the Earth’s atmosphere, bathing the Moon in a reddish, yellow, or orange glow.
As the Sun’s rays pass through the atmosphere, some colors in the light spectrum—those towards the violet spectrum—are filtered out by a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. This is the same mechanism that causes colorful sunrises and sunsets. Red wavelengths are least affected by this effect, so the light reaching the Moon’s surface has a reddish hue, causing the fully eclipsed Moon to take on a red color.
Many ancient civilizations, the “blood moon” came with evil intent. The ancient Inca people interpreted the deep red coloring as a jaguar attacking and eating the moon. They believed that the jaguar might then turn its attention to Earth, so the people would shout, shake their spears and make their dogs bark and howl, hoping to make enough noise to drive the jaguar away.
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