Super blood wolf moon: Skywatchers get last chance to see total lunar eclipse for years

Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email

Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

Although conspiracy theorists fear it signals the end of the world, people across the country – and around the world – rose early to catch a glimpse of a rare “super blood wolf moon” on Monday morning.

Sky-watchers hoped to catch a glimpse of the moon was appearing to glow a spectacular copper red as the result of a total lunar eclipse starting from 2.36am on Monday,

The sight is especially significant for space enthusiasts as it will be the last blood moon until 2021 and was expected to last for more than an hour.

The best time to view the “super wolf blood moon” was expected to be 5.12am.

“We’re going into this unusual lull in total lunar eclipses over the next couple of years,” said Tom Kerss, an astronomer from the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

“So this is a really good one to catch as it’s going to be a long time before you catch another one like this – we will have other lunar eclipses, we just won’t have anything quite as spectacular until May 2021.”

A lunar eclipse happens when the moon passes directly behind the Earth so that the sun, moon, and Earth become exactly or very closely aligned.

With Earth blocking direct sunlight from reaching the moon, light is refracted by Earth’s atmosphere before it is reflected from the moon’s surface, making it appear red.

The natural phenomenon happens for the same reason a sunset or sunrise has a reddish colour.

While it may sound ominous, a “super blood wolf moon” is nothing to worry about, as it is the combination of three strange but perfectly safe events.

A supermoon occurs when a full moon is closest to Earth in its orbit, often appearing larger and brighter than usual, while the blood moon name is inspired by the reddish colour caused by the lunar eclipse.

The wolf part comes from a traditional name given to full moons in January, which is thought to have come from Native American tribes who would hear wolves howling outside villages during full moons at the start of the year.

Unlike a solar eclipse, the light from a lunar eclipse is faint and completely safe to view without special equipment.

It will be visible without binoculars or a telescope and best viewed in an area away from direct light, such as street lamps.

The three-hour lunar eclipse was expected to be visible across North and South America, western Europe and most of Africa.

The period of totality — when the moon is completely bathed in the Earth’s shadow — was set to last an hour, the Associated Press said.

Conspiracy theorists have repeatedly claimed that the blood moon is a sign of the end of the world, despite it being a relatively common occurrence.

The last blood moon to grace UK skies occurred on 27 July 2018, but clouds largely obscured views of the lunar event.

Agencies contributed to this report