The Blue Moon and The Volcanoes, The Forest Fires, and The Lunar Eclipse

The man only comes round once in a blue moon to see his daughter.

Anyone reading above would know the phrase once in a blue moon refers to an occurrence that is so rare that the possibility of it occurring is slim or nil.



^{[Pixabay]Source: A Blue Moon?}


The moon we see most nights may not be blue, but they look white and grey.

A Blue Moon

Even though the idiom once in a blue moon signifies a rare occurrence, there is a possibility of seeing an actual blue moon. But this comes at the cost of a volcanic eruption.

But for Indonesian people of the late 19th century (1883) saw a blue moon every night.

The Krakatoa, a volcanic island situated in Indonesia had a massive volcanic eruption.

The volcanic eruption was so massive it was recorded that cloud of debris and gas can be seen at an estimated 24km (15 miles) up in the atmosphere.

The force of the explosion was equated to that of a 100-megaton nuclear bomb. To put that into perspective, it was about 13,000 times bigger than Little Boy nuclear weapon which badly damaged Hiroshima in 1945.

The volcanic ash which scattered on the stratosphere made the moon to be blue! The ash was said to have circled the globe in less than two weeks.

The plumes had particles of a size of 1 micron.

1 micron or micrometer ( 1μm) = 1/1,000,000th of a meter

That is approximately equal to the wavelength of red light ( 620nm to 750nm). In order words, 0.620μm to 0.750μm.

That size makes it easy for it to scatter red light and acts as a selective filter which only allows blue light through. The Indonesian Krakatoa volcanic cloud now is a perfect blue light filter.

But the blue moon nights are not only for the Indonesians as in 1983 the El Chichon volcano in Mexico. The blue moon here left a teary-eyed city as that of Indonesian did.

The volcanoes are not the only event capable of giving the world a spectacular display at night of a blue moon; the bushfires have a way of replicating that same effect.

The 1950 forest fires known as Chinchaga fire that occurred in northern Alberta and British Columbia of Canada produced smoke so great it was dubbed "1950 Great Smoke Pall" and, of course, some blue moon at night. The clouds gave the whole of North America and England a blue moon night and a light purplish (lavender) sun.

Not all about fires, volcanoes and smokes

If you are a fan of the blue moon, you do not have to experience a fire or volcano to have a peep at your favourite blue moon. You may be in luck as the next lunar eclipse according to the NASA website is on 31st January which just happened to be today!

You may want to head to this interactive website and check when and if the supermoon event would take place in your part of the world.

^{Image: Super Moon over Sanfrancisco}

How does super moon occur?

Th moon while orbiting the earth follows an elliptical trajectory around it. This orbital path move makes it not to have an equidistant path to earth.

The point at which the moon is furthermost from the earth is referred to as the apogee while that when it is nearest to the earth is referred to perigee.

If the full moon coincides with the perigee moment, the moon would appear to be bigger and of course brighter than the usual moon and is referred to as the super moon.

The perigee moon is 363,000km near to earth as against the apogee full moon which is 405,000 km away. The average distance of moon on a normal day is about 384,000 km.

^{[Wikipedia]Source: Apogee and Perigee trajectory distance}

This distance difference makes a perigee moon to be 30% brighter and appear 14% bigger.

^References

• ^{Science of the blue moon}

• ^{NASA on Total Lunar Eclipse}

• ^Supermoon

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