A rare lunar display lights the sky Jan. 31 – before the clouds move in on Sweet Home – as a lunar eclipse begins to throw its shadow over a “Super Blue Moon” at 4 a.m. The clouds grew too thick to see the Super Blue Blood Moon, which climaxed at about 4:45 a.m. A Blue Moon occurs when two full moons happen in the same calendar month; lunar eclipses occur when the moon passes into Earth’s shadow; and supermoons happen when the moon’s perigee – its closest approach to Earth in a single orbit – coincides with a full moon. The orange “blood moon” is caused by the eclipse. In this case, the supermoon also happens to be the day of the lunar eclipse, something that had not happened in the U.S. for more than 150 years, but will, astronomers say, occur again on Jan. 21, 2019.
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