As many of you may recall just a week or so go, on the night of Sept. 28, folks across the United States and even around the world were gearing up for the widely anticipated arrival of the “Super Blood Moon.” Unfortunately for you werewolf loving, vampire adoring, sparkly Edward Cullen-swooning folks out there, this moon was not the long awaited day you might have been looking for in which all of Stephanie Myers fantasies came to life. So then what’s the big deal if there are no Robert Pattenson's or Taylor Lautner's (my personal fangirl favorite) running around shirtless? Well prepare to be pleasantly surprised my friends, because the answer is actually rather fascinating.
Blood Moons are by no means a common occurrence. In fact, blood moons typically only occur a few times each century, according to CNN news. The most recent blood moon preceding this one took place 33 years ago in 1982. According to NASA, this most recent blood moon was part of the final eclipse in a tetrad- a series of four consecutive and complete lunar eclipses. Pretty nifty, huh?! As some of you may recall from the Earth Science days of middle school, a lunar eclipse takes place when the Sun, Earth, and moon are all perfectly a-lined. When the eclipse takes place the Earth is “silhouetted” by the sun as you can see in the image below, courtesy of NASA.
The silhouetting of the Earth casts a rust-orange light upon the moon once it has completely a-lined itself with Earth, thus giving it the famed “blood” like color. Furthermore, what made this particular moon so super and Snapchat Story worthy was its magnificent size that some star gazers were fortunate enough to witness. On Monday (or Sunday depending on what region of the world you found yourself in) the moon reached a position referred to by astrologists known as “perigee.” Perigee is particularly delightful for any on-lookers as this position takes place when the moon reaches the point in its orbit where it appears it’s largest. An astrology fiend’s delight!
So whether you are an astrology aficionado or a hopeless Twilight romantic still awaiting the triumphant arrival of your very own werewolf or vampire, now you know just a little tid-bit about Super Blood Moons and what makes them so super! Happy star gazing!