May 26 marks three celestial events of the moon, as the total lunar eclipse combines with the super moon and blood moon. But, experts say, they have nothing to do with the cyclone.
May 25, 2021, Sudeept Singh
Bhubaneshwar: On Wednesday, skygazers can view the first lunar eclipse of 2021. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Moon will be located on the Earth’s opposite side from the Sun and illuminated on May 26, 2021. This celestial event will have a lunar eclipse, a red blood moon, and a supermoon all at once. The total lunar eclipse will start in India around 2:17 pm and will end at 7:19 pm.
According to the India Meteorological Department( IMD), the ending phase of the lunar eclipse will be visible for a short span of time from northeastern parts of India, West Bengal, Odisha, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. IMD has said the celestial event will be visible in the regions covering South America, North America, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean.
“The people in Odisha and West Bengal might miss the eclipse as skies won’t be clear due to cyclone Yaas,’ said Pravat Kumar Nayak, from the Department of Geology, Utkal University. He said that the cyclone Yaas and the first lunar eclipse of 2021 are independent of each other.
He said that this partial lunar eclipse will not trigger the tidal waves. The flooding of coastal areas, and the swelling of water bodies by the storms and landfall, cannot be linked with such celestial bodies, he added.
“The tides can be higher during the storms due to the wind speed, but there will be less or no influence by the eclipse,” said Abhishek Roy, from the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneshwar. He said that on the full moon, there are high tides due to the combined gravitational force of the moon and sun on earth. He said that it is a partial eclipse for Eastern India, which would start around 3 pm and end by 7 pm. People in Chennai, Delhi, and Mumbai will not see the moon, he added.
Lunar Faces
When a full moon is at the closest point in its orbit to earth, known as its perigee, the moon is called ‘the Supermoon’. While, during a ‘Lunar eclipse’, the sun and the moon are on the opposite sides of the earth. The earth blocks the path of the sunlight falling on the moon, resulting in the earth’s shadow partially or totally covering the moon. On May 26, the moon, the sun, and the earth will form a straight line, the earth will cover the moon completely resulting in a total Lunar eclipse. If some light rays from the sun make way through the earth’s atmosphere and reach the moon. The moon would be illuminated by these rays which would appear to be red. The clouds and dust of the earth’s atmosphere will amplify the color during the eclipse, making the celestial body a Blood moon.
