The Super Blue Blood Moon is Coming

On Wednesday morning, a very wordy lunar event will take over the night sky: the “Super Blue Blood Moon.” Yes, really. So what do all those adjectives mean exactly? The short explanation is that this is an eclipse of the full Moon that happens to have really good timing.

The term “Blood Moon” is used to describe a total lunar eclipse, because it causes the Moon to turn a dark reddish color. This happens whenever the Earth passes directly between the Sun and the Moon, and the Moon falls into our planet’s shadow, or umbra. The Moon doesn’t go completely dark, though: the Sun’s light still manages to shine onto the lunar surface, but it will appear mostly reddish-orange, thanks to a phenomenon known as “scattering.”