The great thing about a lunar eclipse is that you don't need special equipment,
and you don't need to be in a particular location.
Everybody in the United States is going to be able to see this.
They just need to go outside and locate the Moon.
So a total lunar eclipse happens when the Sun, the Earth,
and the Moon are aligned.
The Moon goes around the Earth once a month, but we don't get an eclipse
every month because the Moon's orbit is a little bit tilted.
We get that alignment about every six months.
And so the Earth's shadow stretches across
240.000 miles and lands on the Moon.
Eclipses don't happen every month because the Moon's orbit is tilted
by about five degrees.
And so some months during the full Moon, it's going to pass a little bit
above the Earth's shadow.
And some months it's going to pass a little bit below. About once
every six months, it actually passes through the Earth's shadow.
Now it doesn't hit the middle of that shadow every time.
So some lunar eclipses are just partial.
But every year or year and a half, we get a total lunar eclipse
where the Moon passes through the center of the Earth's shadow,
and every part of the Moon is blocked from the Sun.
The best thing about a lunar eclipse is that it's beautiful.
So the Moon during totality will turn shades of orange and red and brown.
It's being hit by all of the sunrises and sunsets projected from the Earth.