Friday night’s Lunar Eclipse, or Blood Moon, will be the longest in a century. The eclipse is forecasted to last 103 minutes total. This coincides with Mars making the nearest pass of the Earth in 15 years.
The folks that should be able to have a good view of this event are in South Africa, India, and Austrailia. People in Europe and South America should be able to have a partial view. The rest of us will probably have to settle for Facebook or Twitter.
Friday, July 27, 2018, the Earth’s shadow will partially or completely fall on the moon from 1:14 pm to 7:28 pm (EST), complete totality should last from 3:30 pm to 5:13 pm (EST) making this the longest period of totality in the 21st Century.
This all occurs while Mars is at the closest it has been to Earth in 15 years. For the last few nights Mars and Venus have been super bright, but on Friday will appear larger as it is even closer to Earth (barely under 36 million miles away). For us, it should be easily seen, especially with binoculars.
Just to recap, on Friday comes a Blood Moon and Mars the God of War, but no matter what else you may have seen on social media… Mars will NOT appear as big as the Moon. Sorry.
