change its hue to red or copper. This occurrence is referred to as a blood moon, and it happens exclusively during a total lunar eclipse, which is the reason the phrases “total lunar eclipse” and “blood moon” are occasionally interchanged.
As is to be expected, the moon does not genuinely turn red during a blood moon; it merely appears reddish to us on Earth, and there is a solid explanation for this. When Earth positions itself between the sun and the moon, creating a total lunar eclipse, it prevents the sun’s light from reaching the moon’s surface directly. Nonetheless, some sunlight still strikes the moon, but only after traversing through Earth’s atmosphere.
As the sunlight moves through our atmosphere, a significant portion of the shorter wavelengths, which produce blues and violets, are scattered more than the longer wavelengths, responsible for reds and oranges. The longer wavelengths, which are not scattered, are reflected back to Earth by the moon’s surface, resulting in the reddish luminescence and leading to the blood moon phenomenon. The intensity of the red hue may amplify if there is an abundance of dust or clouds present in Earth’s atmosphere. Importantly, the term “blood moon” is not officially recognized in scientific terminology.
