More Lunar Eclipse

A season comes to an end today. It has nothing to do with falling leaves, changing weather, or even big-time sports. Instead, it’s a season of eclipses. It didn’t last long – it started on August 12th, with a total solar eclipse, and it ends tonight, with a partial lunar eclipse. The Moon will be almost completely immersed in Earth’s long shadow, so it’ll turn dark. And at least part of the eclipse will be visible across almost all of North America. An eclipse season is governed by the way in which the Sun and Moon align. Most months, the geometry isn’t right – the Moon and Sun don’t line up the right way, so there are no eclipses at all. But every 173 days, they come into the proper alignment. That produces a solar eclipse at new Moon, and a lunar eclipse at full Moon. They can come in either order, a fortnight apart. And a season lasts for about five weeks – a few days longer than the Moon’s cycle of phases. So if there’s an eclipse near the start of the season, it produces three eclipses. This time, the solar eclipse came a few days after the season began, so we’re limited to two eclipses – including tonight’s. The Moon first dips into Earth’s dark inner shadow at 9:34 p.m. Central Time. The eclipse peaks at 11:13, when the shadow covers 96 percent of the lunar disk. It ends an hour and a half later. Script by Damond Benningfield