Triple treat: Eclipse, comet, full moon coming Saturday night
VOV.VN -This February 11 at 4:40am stargazers in Vietnam are in for a rare celestial treat with three spectacular astronomical events coinciding visibly in the night sky, according to the UK newspaper Mirror.
Full Snow Moon
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February's full moon is traditionally called the Snow Moon because usually the heaviest snows fall in February.
According to the Farmers’ Almanac, some early American Indian tribes referred to February's moon as the ‘hunger’ moon, because harsh weather conditions made hunting difficult.
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon align in an almost straight line.
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When this happens, the Earth blocks some of the Sun's light from directly reaching the Moon's surface, and covers a part of the Moon with the outer part of its shadow - also known as the penumbra.
The rest receives the same amount of sunlight as usual, making the penumbral eclipse more difficult to observe than a total or partial eclipse.
The eclipse will be visible from Europe, Africa, western Asia and eastern North and South America, NASA reports.
New Year comet
Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková is named after the astronomers who discovered it in 1948 - Minoru Honda, Antonín Mrkos, and Ľudmila Pajdušáková.
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| Photo: DailyMail |
The Mirror said it is a periodic comet, meaning it follows a predictable path around the sun, and can be seen from Earth every five and a quarter years.
It has recently been dubbed the ‘New Year comet’ as it started its journey across northern hemisphere skies at the tail end of 2016.
If you miss it, don't worry: It will return in 2022, says Jane Houston Jones of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
