This Week’s Super Lunar Event; Here’s What To Know About It

The 2021 Lunar Event is projected to take place on the morning of May 26 in many parts of the world. It is a special event in all ramifications as we are having three occurrences in a day.

The one happening next week, May 26 will be spectacularly different in the sense that it would be super lunar incident where a super moon, a lunar eclipse and a red blood moon would incident at once! This is something to look out for as it seldom happens.

So what is the implication of a Super Lunar Event?

Let’s analyse what a super moon, a lunar eclipse and a red blood moon one after the other so as to understand the implication of having the three intertwined to take place at once.

Super moon

The online encyclopedia (Wikipedia) would come to the rescue here. It defines a super moon as a full moon or a new moon that nearly coincides with perigee—the closest that the Moon comes to the Earth in its elliptic orbit—resulting in a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk as viewed from Earth.

In simpler terms, it connotes a situation when the advent of a new full moon happens at the same time to when the moon’s distance is closest to the Earth.

The distance between the Moon and the Earth is never static and varies as the moon goes round the planet. It gets farther at times and comes closer in other times. The closest it gets to the Earth is averaged at 28,000 miles.

In summary, when a full moon coincides with the particular time the moon is closest to the earth, we have a Super Moon.

Lunar Eclipse

A lunar eclipse is when the moon moves in the earth’s shadow. According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, this can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are exactly or very closely aligned with Earth between the other two, and only on the night of a full moon.

This thus happens when the shadow of the Earth inhibits some parts or even the entire Moon and only happens when we have a full moon.

 Here, the Earth completely blocks direct sunlight from reaching the Moon with the only illumination on the lunar surface being refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere.

A full moon hence happens when the Moon and the Sun are on opposite side of the Earth. A total lunar eclipse happens when the sun and the moon forms a straight line and the Moon pass through the Earth shadow.

Red Blood Moon

 According to Space.com, a blood moon” happens when Earth’s moon is in a total lunar eclipse. While it has no special astronomical significance, the view in the sky is striking as the usually whitish moon becomes red or ruddy-brown. 

When the Earth Shadow totally covers the Moon, it won’t go completely dark but brings out a red color and this is the reason for the coinage of the name “red moon”. The earth atmosphere a blood red glow when we have total lunar eclipses.

Expectations And Myths

Having the three events happening in a day is amazing on its own and next week may provide future thesis for millennials, genz and students of geography. It offers us the opportunity to see the wonders of nature despite the current grief the world is facing occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are myths in different quarters of earthquakes, hurricanes, raging storms, and natural disasters but they have not been empirically proven with verifiable facts. Proponents of this theory support their claim with the incidents of 1955, 1974, 1992, and of recent 2005 where natural disasters occurred coincidentally with the time of appearance of the super moon. But scientists have punctured the linkage between the disasters and the super moon while noting that although there would be unusual tidal waves as a result of the super moon, it is not enough to create total havoc. They agreed with the possibility of tides lower than normal and tides higher than normal but won’t be massive enough to create hurricanes and earthquakes.

They of course gave a warning: That people living in coastal areas should be wary of venturing into swimming or fishing as the sudden change in tides can obstruct the normal flow of the water.

In Essence, there is no need to panic but we all need to avoid oceans, rivers, and seas.