Blood Moon Eclipse Probably Not A Bad Omen, According To Boring Astrophysicist
June 26, 2018, 4:08 p.m.
There's a blood moon coming next month.
The moon, once again, will threaten to end humanity next month by turning the color of blood and then going dramatically, and completely, dark. Unless you are in a cult — in which case you are not reading this because there is no way your cult leader allows you to absorb knowledge from the outside world — you likely don't believe this is a sign of The End.
Still, if the world ends, and new life eventually takes shape, and those life forms find Gothamist.com, I don't want them to think we were fools. Just as so many other things in this life, it's possible that this headline will be accurate: "Blood moon 'to bring end of the world' as stargazers enjoy longest lunar eclipse this century."
Or, maybe not. Dr. Jackie Faherty, a senior scientist in the American Museum of Natural History’s Astrophysics Department, told Gothamist, "Historically, eclipses [were] regarded as omens or signs of things to come. This is not based in any way in science but rather in the human experience of having a regular astronomical object change in the sky. I can safely say there is absolutely nothing to worry about when a total lunar eclipse occurs. The moon is simply passing into the Earth’s shadow."
Okay, but even if the end were nigh, the eclipse aspect of this event will only be seen from the eastern hemisphere; I'm not really sure how omens work, but seems like we're safe this time.
Faherty tells us the next lunar eclipse that will be visible for NYC will be January 21st, 2019. And you can look to the city skies for the Blood Moon (that's when the Moon is in the Earth’s shadow, giving it a reddish tint, btw) on July 27th and the morning of the 28th.