‘Blood moon’ expected to be visible Saturday morning

A “blood moon” is expected to be visible from Lawrence for a short time Saturday morning.

Kansas University astronomy professor Bruce Twarog says the lunar eclipse, which causes the red-hued phenomenon, will begin shortly before 5 a.m. Total eclipse will be very brief, Twarog says, and should run from 6:55 a.m. to 7:05 a.m.

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“It will be visible from Lawrence in the two hours before sunrise,” Twarog said in a KU news release. “Lunar eclipses, when the Earth is situated between the sun and the moon so that the moon sits within the shadow of the Earth, occur regularly about two weeks after a solar eclipse, when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth and the Earth sits in the shadow of the moon. The Earth experienced a total solar eclipse on March 20, and in the two weeks since, the moon’s orbit has carried it to the side of the Earth opposite the sun.”

The reddish “blood moon” occurs because of the interaction of the sun’s light as it passes through the earth’s atmosphere on its way to the moon’s surface, Twarog said.