Wednesday’s Super Blue Blood Moon was seriously showing off this morning, and rightfully so. The tangerine spot in the sky delighted many stargazers, as evidenced by some unreasonably gorgeous photos of it on social media.
Sure, the moon wasn’t “blue,” as its name suggests. Its color comes from the careful arrangement of the sun, moon, and Earth during a lunar eclipse. As Inverse previously reported, when the moon passes through Earth’s shadow, our atmosphere scatters more blue light than red, causing observers on our planet to see a copper moon.
No matter what color it is, one things for sure: the Super Blue Blood Moon is pure internet magic. Gaze upon the moon’s splendor in these spectacular photos, unless you have actual stuff to do, like work, or feeding your cat:
Wednesday is a cocktail of celestial events: a blue moon, a blood moon, and a total lunar eclipse all at once. Although individually, none of them are particularly rare, the confluence of the three events is — the last time they occurred on the same day was 152 years ago.
Here’s the gist: on this day, the moon is at its perigee — the point in its orbit where it makes its closest approach to Earth. It also coincides with the second full moon of January — in case you missed it, the first was all the back on the first of the month.
It seems fitting that the first month of 2018 is bookended by incredible celestial events. Keep posting pictures and be sure to send them our way!
