What causes a lunar eclipse?

Answer 1

The earth lines up with the sun and the moon and the shadow of the earth darkens out the moon.

Answer 2

A lunar eclipse occours when the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon. As it happens, the Earth and Moon are just the right distance from eachother so the Moon just fits in the Earth's shadow as it passes.

Now you're probably wondering, 'Okay, so why doesn't that happen every month?'

That's because the Moon's orbit around Earth is offset from the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Put two balls on a table, one's the Earth and the other is the Sun. Now take another ball and hold it next to the ball representing Earth. As it moves around the Earth, it moves from slightly below the surface of the table to slightly above and then back down. It's 13 degrees off, to be exact.

So, the only time you'll see a total lunar eclipse is when the moon is resting on the table behind the Earth from the Sun.

Sometimes you'll get a partial eclipse if it's only a little bit off from exactly level to our orbit around the Sun.

Answer 3

A lunar eclipse occurs whenever the Moon passes through some portion of the Earth's shadow. This can occur only when the Moon is full, and when the Sun, Earth and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so. The type and length of a lunar eclipse depends upon the Moon's location relative to its orbital nodes. The most recent total lunar eclipse was on 3 March 2007. It was fully visible over Europe and Africa and at least partly visible over the eastern Americas, Asia, and western Australia.[1] The moon entered the penumbral shadow at 20:18 UTC, and the umbral shadow at 21:30 UTC. The total phase lasted between 22:44 UTC and 23:58 UTC. The moon left the umbra shadow at 01:11 UTC and left the penumbra shadow at 02:24 UTC 4 March 2007

Answer 4

While other answers are close... no cigars. (except maybe the Wiki link which is just lazy)

The earth passing between the sun and the moon casts a shadow on the moon. When the shadow covers the whole moon you have a total lunar eclipse.

The earth is close enough to the moon and enough larger that the shadow CAN cover the whole moon. Thus all parts of earth see the same amont of the moon covered in shadow.

A solar eclipse on the other hand is the moon passing between the sun and the earth. The moon is relatively small and can't cast a shadow over ALL of the earth so the total eclipse is only seen in limited areas. as you get further from the places that see the total eclipse of the sun, you see lesser amounts of the sun's disc blocked from view.

Answer 5

a Lunar eclipse occurs when the earth passes direclty across the path of the light from the sun to the moon,cutting it off and casting a shadow on the moon.

Answer 6

lets see, the earth blocks the sun's light from reaching the moon by getting between the sun and moon. since the earth is so far away from the moon, some of the light gets past earth. that light makes it to the outside of the moon to make a halo- shape, a little bit like a solar eclipse.

Answer 7

When the earth goes between the sun and the moon you get an eclipse..The same happens when the moon goes between the sun and the earth.. It blocks the sun out for a short while

Answer 8

When the Earth is directly in between the moon and the sun so that the sun's light rays do not directly reflect off of the moon's face. Only a slight outline of the moon is seen, due to the some light reflecting from the Earth itself.

Answer 9

essentially the earth is between sun and moon, direct sunlight is mostly blocked and moon turns red due to refraction of light through earth atmosphere. this is a total lunar eclipse, if earth is not directly between moon and sun then it is a partial eclipse with only partial blockage.

Answer 10

The moon blocks the sun at some very specific degree which produces the image you see known as a lunar eclipse.