Lunar eclipse over the Jewel

If you were looking at the skies last night you would have seen the full moon disappear into the shadow of the earth. The bright glow which was emitted marked an occasion which hasn’t been seen in hundreds of years. That’s because it wasn’t just the only lunar eclipse of 2010, it was the first total lunar eclipse to fall on a winter solstice in three hundred and seventy-two years. A winter solstice is the annual day when the Earth’s axis is tilted farthest from the sun and cause shorter days in the north and longer days in the south of the planet. And a bit of factoid you may wish to chew on, is that the last time a lunar eclipse matched up with the winter solstice was December twenty-first 1638. The celestial event brought out scientists as well as romantics.