If the weather cooperates, residents of northeastern Utah will have a good view of a total eclipse of the Moon beginning the night of March 13th and lasting about 6 hours. According to Patrick Wiggins, NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador to Utah, “the show will start officially just after 10:00 pm when the Moon enters Earth’s rather fuzzy outer shadow.” But Wiggins cautions that most people probably won’t see much until it enters the dark part of Earth’s shadow just after 11:00 when, for Utah, the Moon will be not quite half way up the southeastern sky. “But the main event,” according to Wiggins, “will start at 12:26 when the entire Moon will be engulfed in Earth’s dark shadow and totality begins.” There’s no way to tell ahead of time what the Moon will look like during totality. Some past eclipses have been so dark the Moon seems to disappear. But usually some light does leak around the Earth giving the Moon a yellowish, to coppery, or even blood red appearance. Totality will peak at 12:59 and end at 1:32 Friday morning as the Moon begins to leave Earth’s shadow. Wiggins notes that this eclipse could be extra special since Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft will be watching the eclipse from the surface of the Moon. While we on Earth will see an eclipse of the Moon, Blue Ghost will be watching, and sending pictures and data, of an eclipse of the Sun.
