European astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti shared several snapshots on Twitter. These show different phases of the ‘super flower blood moon’ lunar eclipse prepared from the equipment of the space station. The earth covered with clouds is visible below in the pictures. In his tweet, Cristoforetti writes, ‘Are you lucky enough to see last night’s lunar eclipse? we were!’
In some of the images Cristoforetti shared, the Moon appears in total darkness near the space station’s solar panels. It is said that the next full lunar eclipse will happen on 8 November. It can be seen in America, East Asia and Australia.
space.com AccordingSince the International Space Station orbits Earth every 90 minutes, astronauts may have seen the eclipse in several ways. It began at 9:32 pm on Sunday, May 15, according to Eastern Daylight Time, when the Moon entered the lighter part of Earth’s shadow. This is called penumbra. The duration of the lunar eclipse was more than 5 hours. It has been reported that the Moon remained in complete darkness for about 85 minutes, which is the longest time in 33 years.
During a total eclipse, the Moon does not disappear, but turns red. This is due to the scattering of light by the Earth’s atmosphere. Because of this we see ‘blood moon’. ‘Blood moon’ is usually used to refer to a total lunar eclipse.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, the Earth and the Moon come in a straight line. In this situation, the moon has to pass through the shadow of the earth. During a total lunar eclipse, the moon moves into the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow called the umbra.