Winter Solstice Total Lunar Eclipse Tonight

[John Hendry]

I meant to post this in Off Topic a few days ago...been busy so I'm putting it here.

The December 21 full moon coming up tonight will be in total eclipse and take place on the same date as the solstice. This is quite unusual

The next December full moon to occur on the same date as the solstice does not occur again until December 21, 2094. What is interesting is just like this year that same full moon will also occur in a total lunar eclipse. The next eclipse will be opposite in view and not be visible from the Western Hemisphere, but will be seen from Europe, Africa and much of Asia instead. The last time a total lunar eclipse occurred on the same calendar date as the winter solstice happened almost four centuries ago on Dec. 21, 1638.

If you don’t want to go outside or are on the wrong side of the planet you can watch the total lunar eclipse over the Internet.

NASA is planning to stream live Web video of the moon as seen from Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The embedded video coverage will be accompanied by a Java-enabled Web chat with NASA astronomer Mitzi Adams from midnight to 5 a.m. ET Tuesday. Another lunar expert at Marshall, Rob Suggs, is taking your questions in the same chat forum from 3 to 4 p.m. ET today.

John^^