Stargazers enjoyed a “Blood Moon” on Sunday night during a total lunar eclipse visible across Asia and swathes of Europe and Africa.
When the sun, Earth and moon line up, the shadow cast by the planet on its satellite makes it appear an eerie, deep red colour that has astounded humans for millennia.
People in Asia, including India and China, were best placed to see Sunday’s total eclipse, which was also visible on the eastern edge of Africa as well as in western Australia.
Stargazers in Europe and Africa also got a brief chance to see a partial eclipse just as the Moon rose during the early evening but the Americas missed out.
The moon appears red during lunar eclipses because the only sunlight reaching it is “reflected and scattered through the Earth’s atmosphere”, said Ryan Milligan, an astrophysicist at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Blue wavelengths of light are shorter than red ones, so are more easily dispersed as they travel through Earth’s atmosphere, he told Agence France-Presse.
“That’s what gives the moon its red, bloody colour.”
