"Blood Moon" lunar eclipse is a rare sighting characterized by the marvelous yet quite mysterious reddening of the moon as it receives the refracted light spilling over the Earth's surface. And tonight, is probably the best night to get a glimpse of this phenomenon if you don't want to wait for a couple more years to witness it again... and that is if you can live that long to see the next "Blood Moon" lunar eclipse sighting.
According to ABC News, the spectacular view of the moon glowing a distinct shade of red could be seen tonight. The eerie sighting of the "Blood Moon" lunar eclipse is expected to be seen at around 12:53 a.m. ET as the Earth starts to position itself between the sun and the moon.
The aligning of the Earth is said to be the first of a series of four eclipses that is to conclude in September 2015.
The "Blood Moon" lunar eclipse phenomenon is known as a tetrad: the moon is completely covered by the Earth's umbral shadow of four eclipses in a row, as opposed to partial eclipses that fall in the outer penumbra. The rare occasion is marked by the reddening of the moon as refracted light from the Earth hits its surface.
Astrophysicist Fred Espenak, who works for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center specializing in eclipse predictions, said that this is a rare occurence in history. The phenomenon usually happens with large spans of time, such as the previous sighting between 1600 and 1900.
"Frequency sort of goes through 585-year cycles," Espenak said. So you go through centuries where you don't have any, and centuries where you have a number of them."
NASA revealed that the next tetrad is expected to appear in 2032, but we don't have to wait that long to witness this rare "Blood Moon" lunar eclipse.
For those who want a glimpse of this rare sighting, they can start gazing to the stars tonight at 12:53 a.m. ET, and for those who want to see the bloodiest appearance of the lunar eclipse, they should look up at 3:07 a.m. when the moon is covered entirely by the earth's shadow.
The best viewing areas are in North America and some parts of South America. The rest of the world, on the other hand, can only experience partial visibility of the "Blood Moon" lunar eclipse or - sad to say - none at all.
