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While millions of Earthlingswatched the moonlight sprain redduring last night ’s " blood moon " total lunar eclipse , a spacecraft park on the lunation was watching Earth accept the sun .
In a series of sensational double shared by Texas - base Firefly Aerospace — the private company whose Blue Ghost lander successfullytouched down on the Sun Myung Moon ’s dear sideon March 2 — the aloof Sunday is slow occult by the disconsolate orb of Earth until only a vivid ring stay . Firefly also shared a sentence - lapse video recording of the total occultation ( engraft below ) , demonstrate the Sunday increasingly occlude by the Earth until near - sum darkness descend .
The surface of the moon appears to turn red as Earth begins to block out the sun in this image captured by the Blue Ghost lander during the March 13-14 “blood moon” lunar eclipse.
This eerie effect score the minute oftotality , the total phase of a lunar eclipse during which the sunlight ’s disk is entirely stuff and the moon is subsumed into the darkest part of Earth ’s shadow .
Blue Ghost turns red ! Our lander downlinked more imagination from the Moon captured around 2:30 am CDT during the totality of the solar occultation last dark . These images - rapidly captured by our top deck camera with different exposure options - were stitch together in a quick … pic.twitter.com/BjKPXXhMLxMarch 14 , 2025
The March 13 - 14 lunar eclipse survive about six hour in total , from roughly midnight to 6 ante meridiem EDT Friday , with integrality lasting about an hour , from 2:30 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. EDT . On Earth , that was when the moon seem to bend red — an consequence ofRayleigh scattering , wherein shorter , bluer wavelength of sunlight are spread by molecules in Earth ’s atmosphere , leave only longer , redder wavelengths of twinkle to make the Sun Myung Moon .
The Blue Ghost lander saw Earth and the sun form a ‘diamond ring’ in the sky as the totality phase of last night’s eclipse ended.
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At the same prison term , the moon experienced a totality that was shockingly evocative of the monumentaltotal solar occultation that crossed North Americalast April . As Earth blocked the Dominicus ’s disc , only our star ’s outer atmosphere , or corona , was visible to Blue Ghost ’s camera on the lunar month . ( The time - lapse video also shows the spacecraft turning red as more and more sunlight is filtered through Earth ’s atmosphere ) .
As totality finally ended , sunshine top out around the sharpness of Earth , creating a glorious"diamond ring " effectin the sky .
This effervescent sentiment of totality is the result of the exact size and orbital aloofness ratios of Earth , the moon and the Sunday . Although eclipse are alsopossible on other planets , lifeforms on those worlds would n’t get to see a rhombus ring of starlight like we do .
While barb like these are incredibly rare , this is not the first time a total eclipse has been seen from the moon . NASA ’s Surveyor 3 lunar ballistic capsule register one such eclipseback in 1967 .
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This calendar month ’s full lunar occultation is n’t just a blast from the yesteryear ; it ’s also a harbinger . Eclipses always fall in pair , with solar eclipses ineluctably occurring two hebdomad after lunar occultation .
( This is thanks to the lunar cycle ; lunar eclipses can take place only during afull moon , when Earth gets between the moon and the sun ; solar eclipses take place only during a new lunation , when the moon swings between Earth and the sun . )
The nextsolar eclipseon Earth will happen on March 29 , although it will be a fond one — so viewers must wear certifiedeclipse glassesthe whole time . During the eclipse , up to 94 % of the Sunday ’s disk will be draw a blank by the moon , with the northeastern United States and eastern Canada prim to get good views .
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