Around 9pm (local UK time) on Friday 27 July 2018, the full moon will rise over the horizon. But this full moon will be a bit special: it’ll be a deep red colour, because we’re going to experience a total lunar eclipse! C’mon people, get outside!
A lunar eclipse is where the Moon passes through the Earth’s shadow. That means the Moon, the Earth and the Sun are aligned. We have a word for that: it’s totally going to be a syzygy!
So to celebrate, we’re chatting about the eclipse — what it will look like, when to watch it, where the redness comes from — as well as getting a bit lost in tangents along the way, as we do, about astrology, the end of the world, Betteridge’s Law of Headlines and cosmic sows.
SHOW NOTES
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
To view the podcast chapter list and artwork in this episode, you could do worse than use the Overcast app on iOS, or Pocket Casts on Android. (Other podcast players are available, though they may not handle mp3 chapters nicely.)
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
Mars is having a bit of a dust storm at the moment: https://mars.nasa.gov/weather/storm-watch-2018/
Name the ExoMars rover! (Please, no Marsy McMarsfaces, OK?) https://events.airbus.com/exomarsnamecomp
When and where to see the Lunar Eclipse, 27 July 2018: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2018-july-27
Solar eclipse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse
Solar corona: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona
Star Charts: https://astronomynow.com/uk-sky-chart/
Free planetarium app for your computer/phone/tablet/device: http://stellarium.org
Historical eclipses: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhistory/SEhistory.html
Historical comets: http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/54198-harbingers-of-doom-windy-exhalations-or-icy-wanderers/
Historical supernovae: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
Future eclipses: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list.html