Tomorrow, Friday evening, the Emirates will witness a penumbral lunar eclipse. All phases of the eclipse, from its inception to its end, will take a period of four hours and 16 minutes, and start in the UAE from after sunset at 18:54 until 23:31 midnight. A lunar eclipse is a natural phenomenon that occurs when the sun, the earth and the moon are in a straight line in the middle of the lunar month, which leads to blocking the sunlight reflected from the moon.
Ibrahim Al Jarwan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Emirates Astronomy Society, member of the Arab Federation for Astronomy and Space Sciences, indicated that on Friday, May 5, 2023, the Earth will witness a lunar eclipse of the semi-shadow type, as the moon will enter the semi-shadow region of the Earth between 15:14 to 19:31, and The peak of the eclipse will be at 17:34 UTC (UAE time +4 hours). It will be seen in all regions of the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe, and it will be seen in the Emirates and the Arabian Peninsula with the moon rising after sunset. There will be a slight dip in the moon’s light, and no part of the moon’s disk will be obscured. We will witness the next lunar eclipse on October 28, 2023, and it will be partial, at a rate of approximately 12%.
Lunar eclipses occur annually at a rate of two times at a minimum and five times at a maximum. This phenomenon has been classified into three types: total, partial, or semi-shadow eclipses.
A “semi-shadow” lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is in the full moon phase in the semi-shadow region, and this eclipse differs from the remaining two types in that it is difficult to distinguish it with the naked eye, as in the case of a total or partial eclipse. Here it must be observed with binoculars (telescope), because the moon is in the earth’s pale outer shadow “semi-shadow”, and thus the moon will not disappear completely and nothing will decrease in size at the time of the eclipse, but only its illumination will decrease. The color of the moon varies during an eclipse, depending on the amount of dust and clouds present in the atmosphere at the time.
It should also be noted that the twenty-first century (between 2001-2100) will witness 230 lunar eclipses, including 85 total eclipses, 58 partial eclipses, and 87 penumbral eclipses.
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