 Most celestial events that can be described as rare are difficult for us folks to actually see, but if there was one that was ever uncomplicated, it's lunar eclipses. But how exactly do lunar eclipses work? Well, this is your space pod for September 25th, 2015. Lunar eclipses have been observed since antiquity, and unlike a solar eclipse, which requires you to be in the right place at the right time, a lunar eclipse can be viewed for the entire duration, as long as you can actually see the moon. When the earth is positioned in between the sun and the moon, this allows for a lunar eclipse to occur. As the moon orbits around the earth, its path slips through the shadow the earth casts behind it. As this requires the earth to be between the sun and the moon, lunar eclipses only occur during full moon. Observation of a lunar eclipse is very easy as I will now demonstrate myself. All you need is functionalized and fully operational neck muscles. Lunar eclipses happen over very long periods of time, often taking hours from start to finish. Solar eclipses usually only provide a few minutes of safe viewing, while lunar eclipse can be safely viewed in its entirety. The moon first enters what's called the penumbra. This is the outermost edges of the earth's shadow. This area of the earth's shadow is barely noticeable due to the earth, only partially obscuring the light. It's only when the moon crosses into the umbra, the center of the earth's shadow, that most observers will begin to see the moon darken. Once the moon is completely inside of the umbra, something rather bizarre occurs. The moon turns red. You may be asking how can the moon turn a different color while sitting inside of a shadow? Well the reason for its red appearance is quite interesting and rather poetic. Sunlight refracts through the earth's atmosphere. As it does, some of it is scattered into the red wavelengths of visible light, thanks to things like dust and other stuff that may be in the earth's atmosphere. That's why sunsets appear red. But not all of that red light that you see at sunset falls on the earth. Some of it continues out and into space. And during a lunar eclipse, this area of red light being refracted comes into view, reflecting off of the surface of the moon, turning the moon red. So when you see a red moon during a total lunar eclipse, you're seeing light from every sunrise and sunset on the earth. If you were on the moon looking back at the earth, you would actually see a red ring around the outline of the earth. This is from that red light scattering. And it just so happens that there's going to be a total lunar eclipse this weekend. For those of you in Europe and Western Africa, it'll be visible early Monday morning, September 28th. And for those of us in North America and South America, it'll be visible in the evening of Sunday, September 27th. And here are the times in Coordinated Universal Time and Pacific Time for this weekend's total lunar eclipse. Right, hopefully you're writing down those times right now. It's kind of a little awkward waiting for you to get the times. It's like a Michael Sarah movie. Got them? Good. Thanks for watching This Spacepod. I'm Jared Head. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to us on social media. And we do have a Patreon campaign. And thanks to our patrons, we're able to bring these awesome Spacepods to you as often as we can. So if you've got a little extra change, help us out and throw a little bit our way with our Patreon campaign. So until the next Spacepod, keep exploring.