A total lunar eclipse will take place on May 16th

Gad El-Qadi, head of the National Institute for Astronomical and Geophysical Research in Egypt, said that the globe will witness a total lunar eclipse on Monday, May 16, that coincides with the timing of the Badr month of Shawwal for the current Hijri year 1443, and all its phases from its beginning to its end take approximately 5 hours and 19 minutes The Earth’s shadow will cover approximately 141.4 percent of the moon’s surface.

In a statement to the Middle East News Agency, Al-Qadi explained that Egypt will witness only two stages of this eclipse, namely the beginning of the “semi-shadow” eclipse at 3:32 minutes and 7 seconds in the morning, and the beginning of the partial eclipse at 4:27 minutes and 53 minutes in the morning. See the rest of the phases of the eclipse.

He pointed out that this total lunar eclipse will be seen in (Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Antarctica).

He revealed the stages of the total lunar eclipse, as it begins (semi-shadow) at three o’clock 32 minutes and seven seconds, then a partial eclipse at four o’clock 27 minutes and 53 seconds, followed by the beginning of the total eclipse at five o’clock 29 minutes and 3 seconds, and culminates in the sixth hour 11 minutes and 28 seconds, and the total eclipse ends at 6:53 minutes and 56 seconds, then the partial eclipse ends at 7:55 minutes and 7 seconds, and the last stage of the eclipse is “semi-shadow” and ends at 8:50 minutes and 48 seconds in the morning, Cairo local time.

The head of the institute said, “It is possible to take advantage of the phenomena of solar and lunar eclipses to ascertain the beginning and end of the lunar or hijri months, as the phenomena clearly reflect the movement of the moon around the earth and the movement of the earth around the sun.”

He added that the lunar eclipse occurs in the opposite position, i.e. in the middle of the Hijri month when the moon is full, and its presence is at one of the two ascending or descending nodes resulting from the intersection of the plane of the moon’s orbit with the plane of the sun’s orbit (zodiac), or close to it, where the Earth is in this case Between the sun and the moon, on the conjugation line, which is the line connecting the centers of the Earth and the sun or close to it.

For his part, Dr. Ashraf Tadros, professor of astronomy at the institute, explained that on May 16, a total lunar eclipse will occur, as the moon passes through the shadow of the Earth, and during this stage the moon gradually becomes darker, then turns to a rusty copper color and then to a red color.

He added that a very small part of this eclipse can be seen in Egypt, where the moon is in the far west during its sunset and just before sunrise, but the bulk of this eclipse will not be seen where the moon is below the horizon at that time.

He confirmed the full moon (Badr Shawwal) on the same day (Monday, May 16) and its luminosity will reach 99.9%, explaining that the moon will appear to us as a full moon in the period from May 15 to 17, when the naked eye cannot distinguish the entire rotation of the moon’s disk.

He pointed out that this full moon is known to American tribes with names that indicate spring, so they call it (the flower moon, and the corn moon), where the corn harvest is at this time of the year, and sometimes they call it (the milk moon) .. stressing that the time of the full moon is the best time Monthly to monitor the terrain, volcanic craters and meteorite craters on the moon’s surface using binoculars and small telescopes.

By Editor

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