North America will experience a combination of the Winter Solstice and a full lunar eclipse on Tuesday. It’s the first time in 372 years the two have combined on the same day.
The December 21 lunar eclipse is expected to last about three-and-a-half hours from its start as a partial eclipse at 12:33 a.m. CST to its finish at 4:01 a.m. CST, according to NASA. Before and after the total eclipse, the moon will pass through the penumbra, or outer region of the Earth’s shadow, where Earth blocks some of the sun’s rays, but not all.
Viewers will see “the most fantastic shades of coppery red.” Since the year one, Geoff Chester with the US Naval Observatory says he can “only find one previous instance of a total eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice.” That was December 21st, 1638.
The next time the two events coincide will be December 21st, 2094, 84 years from now.
