Century's longest lunar eclipse and Mars closest approach to occur in July 2018

By
                                                                           Image Source- MaxPixel

If you love to stare at night sky, star and planet then this is going to be your golden month. The rare celestial phenomenon like longest lunar eclipse of the century and mars closest approach to the earth are going to happen in July 2018.

Lunar Eclipse

The total lunar eclipse will take place on the night of July 27, 2018. It is expected to be the longest lunar eclipse since last 100 years. The moon will be covered by earth's dark shadow, known as 'The Umbra'. The moon will appear in reddish color, better known as 'Blood Moon'.

Timing of total lunar eclipse in India

As per reports, whole event will start from 23:44 on July 27 and will end at 04:58 of July 28.

The penumbral eclipse will begin around 23:44. After that, the partial eclipse will start at 00:15. And the best part which is total eclipse will start at 01:00 and will end at 02:43. So the total eclipse will last about 1 hour and 43 minutes. At 01:50, the moon will be closest to the center of the earth's shadow. At 04:58, the penumbral eclipse will end.


Globally, the lunar eclipse will be visible in Asia, South America, Africa, Australia and Europe.

Mars closest approach

Other than lunar eclipse, the red planet will come closest to the earth for first time in about 15 years. The last time mars came closest to earth was happened in August 2003 (56.0 million km).

On July 27, the mars, earth and sun will be aligned in a single line with earth in the middle, known as 'Mars Opposition'. On that day, the mars will be far about 57.8 million km from the earth.

On July 31, the mars will make its closest approach to the earth and will be far about 57.6 million km. The red planet will appear more brighter than jupiter.

The location of mars in your region can be known by the sky gazing apps and websites.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pitch - world's most viscous liquid | Pitch drop experiment

By
Image
Pitch, a highly viscous material derived from tar which behaves as a very slow flowing fluid at room temperature. The viscosity of pitch is about 230 billion times that of water. At a first glance, pitch looks like brittle solid which can be shattered by hammer but as a matter of fact, it is a very thick fluid even at room temperature. In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnell of university of Queensland in Australia, started an experiment to illustrate the liquidity of pitch. He took a sample of heated pitch and poured in to a sealed funnel and allowed it to settle for 3 years. Then in 1930, the seal from funnel was taken off and pitch was allowed to flow. A transparent bell jar covers the funnel and beaker. The first drop fell after 8 years in December 1938. And till today, only 9 drops have fallen. The last and 9th drop fell in April 2014. The next drop is expected to fall sometime in next decade. Initially, the experiment was not conducted under any special...
Read more

Mars Exploration: Rovers, Landers, Orbiters and Flybys

By
Image
The attempt to explore the Red Planet started a long ago since 1960. It is definitely hard to sent a small thing from Earth to far about 225 million km to Mars. But after many upssets we manage to reach the Red Planet. Let's take a look on the list of missions to the Red Planet. 1) Marsnik  1 - Launched on October 10, 1960 - USSR Mars probe - Failed to reach Earth's orbit 2) Marsnik 2 - Launched on October 14, 1960 - USSR Mars probe - Failed to reach Earth's orbit 3) Sputnik 22 - Launched on October 24, 1962 - USSR Mars Flyby - Failed to reach Earth's orbit 4) Mars 1 - Launched on November 1, 1962 - USSR Mars Flyby - Communication failed on the way 5) Sputnik 24 - Launched on November 5,  1962 - USSR Mars Lander - Failed to leave Earth's orbit 6) Mariner 3 - Launched on November 5, 1964 - USA Mars Flyby - Solar panels failed to open preventing flyby 7) Mariner 4 - Launched on November 28, 1964 - USA Mars Flyby - Marine...
Read more

NASA's InSight Mars Lander: Overview and Objectives

By
Image
                                 Image  source: NASA On the foggy morning of 5 May 2018, the InSight kick off his journey towards Red Planet from Vandenberg SLC-3E. It will take about 6.5 months to reach on Mars. The touchdown is expected on 26th Nov 2018 and it is planned to land it on place called Elysium Planitia. If it manages to land on Mars than it will be the 8th successive landing. The previous successes include Viking 1, Viking 2, Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix, and Curiosity. Along with InSight, the 2 CubeSat called 'MarCO A and B' were also launched which are currently trailing behind the Mars' InSight lander. It will work as communication and relay satellite and will help us to communicate with InSight on its way. They'll not enter the orbit of Mars. InSight stands for In terior Exploration using S eismic I nvestigations, G eodesy and H eat T ransport. And as th...
Read more

Contact Me

Name

Email *

Message *