Lunar Eclipse Over Washington
A full moon winks at Washington, D.C. during last night's total lunar eclipse. Pictured alongside the business end of the Washington Monument, the moon is shown just shy of totality, when the entire orb is engulfed by Earth's shadow and takes on a rusty glow.
Coinciding with the winter solstice for the first time since 1638, the December 21, 2010, lunar eclipse was anything but ordinary.
Around 1 a.m. ET, the moon began going slightly shady, marking the arrival of Earth's faint outer shadow, or penumbra. Shortly after 1:30 a.m. ET, the first signs of a dim "bite"—Earth's dark umbra—began advancing across the moon from the left.
Totality began at about 2:40 a.m. ET, turned the moon a photo-friendly red, and lasted a little over 70 minutes. The full show—the moon's passage through penumbra, umbra, and penumbra again—lasted about three and a half hours.
Heavenly Sight
A statue atop St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City last night appears poised to catch the totally eclipsed moon, in all its crimson splendor.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon, Earth, and the sun all line up, with Earth in the middle. During the eclipse, Earth's shadow is cast onto the full moon, dimming—but not completely obscuring—its surface. Unlike solar eclipses, the lunar varieties are safe to view without any special eyewear.
Shuttle Snafu Eclipsed by Sky Show
The full moon—or at least a slice of it—shines on the space shuttle Discovery, headed for a fuel tank inspection, in the first hours of December 21, 2010.
Pictured at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, the NASA craft was stalled during journey from launchpad to Vehicle Assembly Building, but the winter solstice lunar eclipse had nothing to do with it. En route to the hangar, the shuttle's crawler-transporter had suffered a malfunction.
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