Seeing red

The famed author Mark Twain once said "Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side he never shows to anybody." On the night of May 15, what looked like it might be the dark side of the moon could be seen in Saratoga and across the country.

In fact, it was a lunar eclipse and the first one of 2022. The official name for this celestial event was Super Flower Blood Moon. According to Space.com, this event had the longest total lunar eclipse in 33 years. With a time of 85 minutes, it was just 11 minutes behind an event in August 1989 when the total lunar eclipse lasted 96 minutes.

A lunar eclipse may not be as visually exciting as a solar eclipse-such as the one which cast a portion of Wyoming in darkness in 2016-but how it happens is no less interesting. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, obscuring our view of the Sun. A lunar eclipse, meanwhile, occurs when the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon. The shadow we see on our planet's sole natural satellite is that of Earth's.

The term "blood moon" refers to the red hue cast on the full moon by Earth's shadow. A supermoon, meanwhile, occurs during a full moon or new moon when the satellite is at its closest point to the Earth during its elliptical cycle. These typically occur three to four times a year, according to the Natural History Museum. The term Flower Moon, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac, is attributed to the Algonquin peoples and the name is fairly self-explanatory; May is when flowers typically bloom.

With all of these events coinciding, it gave us the Super Flower Blood Moon witnessed Sunday night.

The next total lunar eclipse visible from the American West will be on November 8, 2022. If you missed your chance at seeing the Super Flower Blood Moon, mark your calendars.