Eclipse 2018: When is the next lunar eclipse? Solar and lunar eclipse difference explained

Last month’s full Moon turned a hanging pink color on the night time of Friday, July 27, when it handed via the centre of Earth’s shadow.

The astronomical occasion sometimes graces the night time skies solely a few times a 12 months, and on uncommon event doesn’t happen in any respect.

The July eclipse got here sizzling on the heels of the January 31 Super Blue Blood Moon and the excellent news is one other one is brewing on the horizon.

Astronomers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center estimate the Moon, the Earth and the Sun will as soon as once more align on the night time of January 21, 2019.

This means the Moon will glow pink as soon as once more in lower than six months.

But there may be one other eclipse stargazers can sit up for – a partial eclipse of the Sun on August 11.

So what’s the distinction between Solar and lunar eclipses?

A lunar eclipse happens when the Moon entered the Earth’s shadow, or umbra, solid by the Sun’s rays straight behind Earth.

This stellar alignment doesn’t occur all that always as a result of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is tilted by about 5 levels in relation to the journey the Earth makes across the Sun.

On any given day, the Moon is both above or under the orbital airplane of our residence planet.

But each six months or so, the stellar planes align sufficient for the Moon to briefly move via the Umbra.

When this occurs, refracted daylight within the Earth’s dusty environment paints the Moon an ominous pink hue for as much as one hour and 47 minutes, till the Moon leaves the shadow.

NASA defined: “A complete lunar eclipse happens when the moon and the solar are on precise reverse sides of Earth.

“Although the moon is in Earth’s shadow, some daylight reaches the moon.

“The sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere, which causes Earth’s atmosphere to filter out most of the blue light. This makes the moon appear red to people on Earth.”

A partial lunar eclipse happens when solely a part of the Moon enters the shadow and not less than two of those occur every year.

The reverse of this occurs throughout a photo voltaic eclipse when the Moon passes in entrance of the solar sufficient to dam the star’s heat rays.

Due to an incredible cosmic coincidence, the Sun and the Moon look like roughly the identical measurement when seen from Earth.

So when the Moon briefly passes in entrance of the Sun, the glowing orb is fully blocked out from sight, leaving nothing however a glowing corona of sunshine across the edges of the Moon.

Total photo voltaic eclipses solely final a couple of minutes at a time and are very restricted in the place they seem over Earth.

But a photo voltaic eclipse is especially breathtaking as a result of approach the skies seem to show darkish on the drop of the hat in broad daylight.

Partial photo voltaic eclipses happen when a small fragment of the Sun disappears behind the Moon and annular eclipses occur when your entire Moon strikes in entrance of the Sun however is much sufficient from the Earth to nonetheless see the glowing disk of the Sun behind it.

NASA mentioned: “Solar eclipses happen once every 18 months. Unlike lunar eclipses, solar eclipses only last for a few minutes.”

The subsequent partial photo voltaic eclipse will take a chunk out of the face of the Sun within the morning hours on Saturday, August 11.

The subsequent whole lunar eclipse will happen on July 2, 2019, over the South Pacific and South America.