January 2019 lunar eclipse


A total lunar eclipse occurred on January 21, 2019 UTC. For observers in the Americas, the eclipse took place between the evening of Sunday, January 20 and the early morning hours of Monday, January 21. For observers in Europe and Africa, the eclipse occurred during the morning of January 21. The Moon was near its perigee on January 21 and as such can be described as a "supermoon".
As this supermoon was also a wolf moon, it was referred to as a "super blood wolf moon"; blood refers to the typical red color of the Moon during a total lunar eclipse. This was the last total lunar eclipse until May 2021. This was a Super Full Moon because occurred less than a day before perigee and the Moon was less than exactly 360,000 km.
The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California captured video showing a meteor between the size of an acorn and tennis ball impacting the moon during the eclipse. The impact was observed during totality, at 4:41 UTC, on left side of the moon. It is one of the only documented cases of lunar impact during a total lunar eclipse.

Visibility

The eclipse was visible in its entirety from North and South America, as well as portions of western Europe and northwest Africa. From locations in North America, the eclipse began during the evening hours of January 20. Observers at locations in Europe and much of Africa were able to view part of the eclipse before the Moon set in the early morning hours of January 21.

Simulated view of Earth from Moon during greatest eclipse, with infrared clouds

Visibility map

Timing

The penumbral phases of the eclipse changes the appearance of the Moon only slightly and is generally not noticeable.

Observations

America

Europe

Appearance

It took place in the constellation of Cancer, just west of the Beehive Cluster.

Impact sighted

detected a flash of light while viewing the eclipse. It was "likely caused by the crash of a tiny, fast-moving meteoroid left behind by a comet."
Originally thinking it was electronic noise from the camera, astronomers and citizen scientists shared the visual phenomenon with each other to identify it.
When totality was just beginning at 4:41 UT, the tiny speck of light blinked south of a nearly 55-mile-wide crater in the western part of the moon.
The location of the impact may be somewhere in the lunar highlands, south of Byrgius crater, according to Justin Cowart, a graduate student in geosciences at Stony Brook University in New York who first saw the flash of light.
“A about this size hits the moon about once a week or so,” said Cowart.
This may be the first time that a collision, during a total lunar eclipse, was captured on video.
“I have not heard of anyone seeing an impact like this during a lunar eclipse before,” said Sara Russell, a professor of planetary sciences at the Natural History Museum in London.
People posted their images and video of a flicker of light as news spread quickly on social media.
Working overtime, co-director of the Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System, MIDAS, an astrophysicist at the University of Huelva in Spain, Jose Maria Madiedo, set up eight telescopes to watch for any impacts during the eclipse.
“Something inside of me told me that this time would be the time,” said Madiedo.
A paper estimates a mass between 20 and 100 kilograms and diameter of 30 to 50 cm and could cause a 7–15 meters crater. Other astronomers estimated a 10-15 meter crater from a 45 kg asteroid moving 61,000 km/h.

Related eclipses

Eclipses of 2019

Saros series

It is part of Saros cycle 134.

Half-Saros cycle

A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days. This lunar eclipse is related to two annular solar eclipses of Solar Saros 141.
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