The moon tonight is a blood moon - how is this caused?

Question

its very beautiful. Just wondering what causes it.

Answer 1

A blood moon occurs only at full moon. The moon tonight (August 14) is near thrid quarter, so while you may have seen a reddish moon, it was not a blood moon.

The October full moon is sometimes called the Hunter's Moon or Blood Moon. The name is also attributed to the moon if it rises at your location during a lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses happen only at the time of full moon.

Where the heck are you that you have seen the moon already tonight? The moon won't rise for several hours where I am (New York City). You must be in Pakistan, or at least Greece.

Answer 2

The orange and red tints that the Sun and Moon sometimes take on are caused by the particles in the Earth's atmosphere.

When light (or more specifically, packets of light called photons) from an astronomical object passes through the Earth's atmosphere, it scatters off of particles in the latter. It turns out that these particles like to scatter blue light more than they do red light; so "bluer" photons (those with shorter wavelengths) tend to get scattered, and "redder" photons (those with longer wavelengths) pass through. So, astronomical objects look redder from Earth than they would from space, because the redder wavelengths from the objects penetrate the atmosphere better than the bluer ones. Incidentally, this is why the sky is blue: blue light from the Sun is scattered in all directions on its way to the Earth.

But how does this explain the occasional redness of the Moon or the Sun? Your son may have noticed that they always occur when the Sun or Moon is close to the horizon. If you think about it, sunlight or moonlight must travel through the maximum amount of atmosphere to get to your eyes when the Sun or Moon is on the horizon (remember that that atmosphere is a sphere around the Earth). So, you expect *more* blue light to be scattered from Sunlight or Moonlight when the Sun or Moon is on the horizon than when it is, say, overhead; this makes the object look redder. In other words, the Sun or Moon tends to look orange or red when it is rising or setting because that's the time when the light has to travel through the most atmosphere to get to you. The effect is exacerbated when there are thin clouds in front or behind the Sun or Moon: the clouds themselves often glow bright pink as well, because they are so good at scattering blue light.

Answer 3

The Moon is low on the horizon so you are seeing It through a thicker layer of atmosphere. Particles in the atmosphere scatter the light and the human eye is most sensitive to red light so the moon appears red.

Answer 4

Same reason as why sun-sets are red.

The light reaching the moon has passed through earth's atmosphere. The blue is scattered leaving red light behind, to reflect off the moon.

Answer 5

Maybe it is because some phenomenon in the atmosphere is preventing certain spectrums of light from going through. More than likely it is electromagnetic energy from the sun blocking the normal reflection of light off the moon.

Answer 6

Pollution!

Answer 7

ow sorry I forgot to tell.. I cut myself during cooking.. ;).. no just kidding...

I guess there's more sun.. or filtered through clouds or something like that..

(this isn't very helpful. is it??)

Answer 8

a lot of atmospheric dust

Answer 9

time of the month maybe

Answer 10

Maybe its on its period!!