While forecasts called for cloudy skies on Friday morning in south-central Pennsylvania during a total lunar eclipse, clear skies prevailed, providing a spectacular astronomical show to those who persevered through the poor forecasts.
In Pennsylvania, the eclipse slowly began around 11:57 p.m. on Thursday night, March 13, as a subtle dimming began.
By around 1:09 a.m. on Friday, March 14, that subtle dimming became a partial eclipse, as the full Moon began to be concealed in the shadow of the Earth's umbra.
Around 2:26 a.m., totality began as the Moon slipped completely within the shadow of the Earth, beginning a spectacular display of reddish hues commonly referred to as a "Blood Moon."
The eclipse began to fade around 3:30 a.m., and the process had concluded by around 6 a.m. as the sun began to rise.
While forecasts earlier in the day called for cloudy conditions, the entirety of the eclipse remained visible in clear skies around Hanover and Gettysburg, with stars clearly visible alongside the full Moon during totality.
The next total lunar eclipse for Pennsylvania will be on June 26, 2029, according to Rob Radzanowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in State College.
What is a total lunar eclipse?
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes into Earth's shadow while aligning with our planet and the sun.
When the moon is imperfectly covered by Earth's shadow as our planet passes between our natural satellite and the sun, it produces a partial lunar eclipse - like the one that took place in September. In a total lunar eclipse, the entire Moon moves into the innermost and darkest part of Earth's shadow, called the umbra, completely blocking it from the sun, according to NASA.
The Moon, which does not produce its own light, shines because its surface reflects the sun's rays. Though the Earth blocks any direct sunlight from reaching the moon during a total solar eclipse, the sun still casts the Earth's shadow on the lunar surface.
The process that produces the red or orangish glow is the same that makes our sky blue and our sunsets red, according to NASA.
As sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere, it is refracted toward the surface.
Blue light has a shorter wavelength and scatters relatively easily, that's why our sky appears in that color most of the time. Reddish light, which travels more directly in the air, manifests to ground observers during sunrises and sunsets when the sun is near the horizon and its incoming light travels at a longer, low-angle path through Earth's atmosphere.
That's similar to what's happening on the Moon during a total lunar eclipse when sunlight is once again refracted towards the surface of the fully eclipsed Moon. Even though Earth blocks sunlight from directly reaching the Moon during a total lunar eclipse, our planet's atmosphere still bends sunlight to indirectly light up the lunar surface.
"It's as if all the world's sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the moon," NASA explained.
Harrison Jones is the Hanover reporter for the Evening Sun. Reach him at [email protected].