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The longest lunar eclipse of the century making the moon look blood red will be visible in Cyprus too from the night of Friday July 27 until the early hours of Saturday July 28.

Astronomers expect the main spectacle to last approximately an hour and 43 minutes. From start to finish, the entire celestial event will last nearly four hours.

In Cyprus, the blood moon will begin with the penumbral eclipse at 20:14 where the Earth’s penumbra will begin touching the moon’s face.

At 21:24 partial eclipse will begin where the moon will start becoming red. Total eclipse will be at 22:30 while maximum eclipse will be at 23:21 and will end at 00:13 on Saturday.

Partial eclipse will end at 01:19 and the penumbral eclipse will end at 02:28.

A special event will be held at the Holy bishopric of Tamasos and Orini in Nicosia in cooperation with the Cyprus astronomy society where the public will be able to observe the eclipse and see the planets through telescopes.

The moon turns red because some of the sunlight going through Earth’s atmosphere is bent around the edge the planet and falls onto the moon’s surface.

Earth’s air also scatters shorter-wavelength light in colours such as blue and green, leaving the longer-wavelength redder end of the spectrum.

Essentially, the red colour is Earth’s refracted sunset-sunrise light being bounced back.

The eclipse has also given rise to doomsday theories with one Baptist pastor Paul Begley saying in a recent Youtube video that this was a prophecy and the blood moon could be interpreted as a sign that “these are the last days.”

Source: CyprusMail