By SAVANNAH BARR

s.barr@bradfordera.com

March’s full moon, also called the worm moon, will appear red in the skies tonight during a total lunar eclipse.

‘The eclipse happens because the earth’s shadow is falling across the moon,’ said Eldred’s Greg Bell, retired science teacher.

When the moon passes through the earth’s shadow it will appear reddish, a phenomenon called a blood moon.

The moon appears red because Earth’s atmosphere scatters light from the sun, filtering out blue wavelengths. Observers may notice that the moon is different shades of red or copper depending on local atmospheric conditions like dust, clouds or pollution.

According to NASA, the eclipse will begin at 11:57 p.m. today, when the edge of the earth’s shadow first begins touching the face of the moon.

The partial eclipse will begin at 1:09 a.m. when the moon first begins to appear reddish. The total eclipse will begin at 2:26 a.m., reaching its brightest point at around 2:58 a.m. The total eclipse will end at 3:31 a.m. when the moon begins to pass out of the earth’s shadow. Completely finished at about 6 a.m., the entire celestial event will take about six hours. ‘It lasts for several hours because the earth’s shadow is huge compared to the moon,’ said Bell.

‘So this eclipse will take quite a while because the moon has such a big shadow to pass through.’

Visible across the continental United States, a total lunar eclipse like this happens about once a year and only occurs during a full moon, Bell explained.

‘The only time you can have a full moon is when the sun is on the opposite side of the moon, which lights up the entire moon,’ Bell said.

The earth orbits the sun on a particular plane, but the plane of the moon orbiting the earth is not perpendicular to that plane. The moon’s orbit is tipped about five degrees, which is why the moon goes through phases of waxing and waning each month.

‘The orbit of the moon isn’t in direct line with the orbit of the earth to the sun,’ said Bell. ‘Usually it is above or below that plane and then it won’t pass through the shadow of the earth at all.’

The blood worm moon will rise in the sky tonight and last until Friday morning. According to NASA, Native American tribes in the northeastern United States called this full moon the crow, crust, sap, sugar or worm moon to denote natural events that happen at the end of winter, such as the cawing of crows or the earthworm casts that can be found on newly thawed ground.

March’s full moon, also called the worm moon, will appear red in the skies tonight during a total lunar eclipse.

Department of the Interior Facebook photo