Ready to see the first of two lunar eclipses this year and the only total for 2021? It will be this Wednesday, May 26, as the entire Moon will pass through the umbra, the darkest and most central part of the shadow of our planet.
It was about time we had a total lunar eclipse, because the last time we were able to enjoy an equal one of these characteristics was on January 21, 2019 because in 2020 we only have faint penumbral eclipses.
The total lunar eclipse will be visible in America, the Pacific, Oceania and Asia. It will take place in the early morning for western North and South America, and in the evening for Far East Asia and Australia. Unfortunately, the total lunar eclipse will not be visible from Spain, although the full moon (the moon of the flowers for the wild flowers that bloom in the northern hemisphere) will be a supermoon, but we can contemplate it through the internet that, as always, there will be many live and direct online broadcasts.
The moon will be in the dark umbra of the Earth for a fairly short period of time: 14 minutes and 31 seconds, although from start to finish it will take a little over three hours for the eclipse to pass through the shadow of the Earth. The moon will slide through the northernmost part of the shadow. This also means that totality will likely be relatively bright, because the upper limb of the moon will be closer to the outer edge of Earth’s dark threshold shadow. This full moon in May 2021 does not even cross the center of the Earth’s shadow, it does not make a perfect alignment (which is why the total eclipse lasts so short). The more the center of the full moon aligns with the center of the Earth’s shadow, the deeper and longer the total eclipse will be.
As a curiosity, the longest eclipse of the 21st century took place on July 27, 2018 when the alignment of the full moon and the Earth’s shadow was almost perfect, resulting in the longest total lunar eclipse between 2001 and 2100. It lasted, nothing more and nothing less, than 1 hour and 43 minutes in total.
May’s supermoon will be the biggest of the whole year
The full moon will look unusually large and reddish. In addition to the total lunar eclipse, this moon is a supermoon and the closest full moon of the year, surpassing the April full moon, meaning it will appear infinitesimally larger to sky watchers on Earth. How much? Its distance will be 357,474 kilometers , which will make us see it approximately 7.7% larger than normal (and also brighter).
Why do the colors of the moon change during eclipses?
Not all total lunar eclipses are the same, and the color of the Moon’s appearance during totality depends on the depth to which it passes through the umbra core and on the amount of suspended dust and aerosols present in the atmosphere of the moon. Earth at that time.
2021, four eclipses
We will only have four eclipses this year: two of the moon and two of the sun . The first of them we have advanced, it will be on May 26, when the full moon is completely submerged in the dark threshold shadow of the Earth.
