It will all start with a full moon on May 26, 2021.
But this complete “Flower Moon” will be for two reasons:
As in the wheels, this “eclipse of blood moon and superflower” marks a point in the Earth’s orbit through the Moon that triggers a chain of occasions that then causes a solar eclipse of a part an orbit later, when the between the Earth and the Sun.
By June 10, 2021, the “supermoon” will have become a “micromoon”; this is not an uncommonly used term, but it is helping what is happening.
As long as the “supermoon” is close to earth, this new moon will be the furthest from earth.
The result is an annular solar eclipse that will be visual as a “ring of fire” around the Moon from parts of Canada, Greenland, and Russia, and a massive partial solar eclipse at dawn (or shortly thereafter) from the northeastern states. Europa will also revel in its largest partial solar eclipse since 2015, when up to 32% of the Sun is covered by the Moon.
Note: Never look at the partial stages of a solar eclipse without proper eye protection, and that means eclipse sunglasses. Lunar eclipses are absolutely all the time.
But why two eclipses with each other?And why eclipses and the “eclipse season”?
Eclipses are binocular (and infrequently triplets). Eclipse seasons are an era between 31 and 37 days that occurs every 173 days, so approximately twice a year. The next one is the first of the two starting in 2021.
An eclipse season occurs when the Moon is perfectly aligned to cut off the ecliptic, the obvious trajectory of the Sun, our daytime sky, and the plane from the Sun’s Earth orbit.
The Earth’s orbit of the Moon is tilted 5º from the ecliptic, but will have to go through the ecliptic twice a month. These two positions are called nodes. It usually reaches those nodes when the Sun and Moon appear far from our view on Earth, so an eclipse does not occur on each and every New Moon (because the Moon is above or below the Sun) and on the entire Moon (because the Moon is above or below the Earth’s shadow).
Only when the Moon is exactly at those nodes, the New Moon or the Full Moon, can an eclipse occur.
However, when the Moon reaches one of those nodes, it will reach the other node of the eclipse two weeks later, and a third time two weeks later as well.
The moment the 2021 eclipse season begins on November 19, 2021, when a partial lunar eclipse, an “icy-blooded lunar eclipse,” will see 97% of the Moon enter earth’s dark, reddish shadow. North and South America, Australia and Asia.
You’ll follow through the icing on the celestial cake: an impressive total solar eclipse in Antarctica that will be visual (the clear sky) low in the sky above the floating icebergs of the Wedell Sea.
Disclaimer: I’m the editor of WhenIsTheNextEclipse. com
I wish you transparent skies and big eyes.
I am an experienced journalist in science, generation and astronomer who writes about night sky exploration, sun and moon eclipses, moon observation, astro-,
I am an experienced science, generation and travel journalist and an astronomer who writes on night sky exploration, eclipses of the sun and moon, moon observation, astronomy, area exploration, and astronomy. I am the editor of WhenIsTheNextEclipse. com and the writer of “A Stargazing Program for Beginners: A Pocket Field Guide” (Springer, 2015), as well as eclipse hunting guides.