Why does the moon turn red during a total lunar eclipse?

The Blood Moon is back! The total lunar eclipse will take place in May 2022.

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When a lunar eclipse occurs and our lone satellite inches into Earth's shadow, the moon's face becomes painted red.

The moon gets cast in a scarlet light even during partial lunar eclipses, even though this red hue is most striking during a total lunar eclipse. Why does the moon turn red and not black when it is in the shadow of the Earth?

Depending on where you are, the only lunar eclipse visible in North America this year happens on May 15 or 16. Some people will be able to see a total lunar eclipse on May 15 while others will only be able to see a penumbral lunar eclipse. When the moon passes into the central portion of Earth's shadow, called the umbra, there is a fiery glow.

The moon will turn a reddish hue when it is within the umbra. Blood Moons are sometimes called lunar eclipses because of this phenomenon.

There is a total lunar eclipse in May 2022.

The way that light scatters makes the moon look red. The light scatters more than others due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. The light's wavelength scatters the most off teensy particles that are about one-tenth the wavelength.

During a lunar eclipse, the sun, Earth and moon are lined up so that the moon cannot see the sun. Light rays can bend around the edges of our planet before being reflected onto the moon. Particles in the atmosphere preferentially scatter the shorter-wavelength blue light when it passes through Earth's atmosphere. The orange and red light bathes the moon.

This phenomenon explains why the sky is blue. During the day, the sun's light waves, which are made up of a swath of colors corresponding to their individual wavelengths, getFILTERED through our atmosphere, where the tiny nitrogen and oxygen gas molecule let the longer wavelengths such as reds. The violets and blues get absorbed and scattered every which way, giving them more chances to hit our eyes.

During a total lunar eclipse, the moon will change from a grayish to orange and amber shade. The brightness of the colors can be affected by the weather. Extra particles in the atmosphere, such as ash from a large wildfire or a recent volcanic eruption, may cause the moon to appear a darker shade of red.

Sometimes the moon hides behind Earth's shadow. During a partial lunar eclipse, the sun, Earth and moon are slightly off in their alignment, and so our planet's shadow is just part of the moon.

A novice skywatcher might not even notice the third type of lunar eclipse, the penumbral kind, in which the moon sits in Earth's penumbra or its faint outer shadow.

The next two total lunar eclipses will occur on May 16, 2022 (visible in the Americas, Europe and Africa), followed by one on Nov. 8, 2022 (visible in Asia, Australia, the Pacific and the Americas), according to NASA.

Editor's Note: This article was first published in 2016 and updated for the Super Blue Blood Moon lunar eclipse of 2018, 2021 and 2022.

There is an original article on Live Science.