If its a total lunar eclipse why does one edge remains brighter than the rest?

I have been googling for an answer for a while and cant find it. Even pictures of previous total lunar eclipses are the same. Is it because that side remain closer to the edge of the umbra? Or is it caused by how light behaves; Or because the surface of the moon is more reflective on that part.

  • Kichae@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    9 hours ago

    For the same reason the moon is red and not black: The earth’s atmosphere is scattering and bending sunlight. Red light scatters the least, and ends up with the smoothest distribution once it’s past by the planet, while bluer light scatters more frequently, and will be more effectively blocked.

    Not that “more effectively” is not the same as “totally”. This leaves the outer regions of the umbra receiving more light – and less reddened light – than the centre of the umbra.

    • young_broccoli@fedia.ioOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 hours ago

      So like the umbra has a “bright” edge compared to its center?

      I think that was my mistake, I was thinking of the transition between the penumbra and umbra had a straigt edge when viewed from earth.

      thanks

      • Kichae@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        6 hours ago

        Yes, but it’s not just brighter near the outer edges, it’s whiter, thanks to the inclusion of more blue light, and that less ruddy colour does a lot to affect how we see the gradation from light to dark.

        They are harder to find than they should be, but there are pictures of the Earth occulting hte sun out there, and you can see how the Earth’s atmosphere is aglow with scattered sunlight. There’s more light closer to where the sun is than where isn’t. The Blue Ghost lander pictures of the eclipse are probably the most accessible right now:

        The earth eclipsing the sun, as seen from the surface of the moon.

        The bright ring around the Earth in ths image is sunlight streaming through the Earth’s atmosphere. See how blue it looks? And how it gets brighter closer to the sun?

        That’s why.

        • young_broccoli@fedia.ioOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 hours ago

          Got it, thats very interesting. I already understood the redness of the shadow but had no idea how much more complex it is and that picture of earth eclipsing the sun makes it way more clearer.

          Thank you very much, I would upvote you 10 times if I could.

  • Xaphanos@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    15 hours ago

    The alignment is not perfect. The shadow of the earth entirely covers the moon - as the earth is bigger.

    • Q The Misanthrope @startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      13 hours ago

      This is the answer. The moon is passing through phases as it orbits and isn’t perfectly aligned so there will always be shading and color variations.

      I’m posting this video because they animate the different types of eclipse and also explain why it’s red. So now it’s just understanding that everyone’s view is always “off to the side” so there is a gradient of color and brightness.

      https://youtu.be/VW2xRR75lKE

    • young_broccoli@fedia.ioOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      14 hours ago

      I get that, but if the moon is completely behind the umbra of earths shadow why is that it looks brighter on one side/edge?

      Examples:

      Eclispe 1

      Eclipse 2

      Eclipse 3

      Not my pictures btw. I took them from r/astrophotography

      • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        9 hours ago

        Have you seen a sunset when you had a pretty clear view of the horizon such as over water or in unforested plains? Once the sun is fully hidden from view, there is still the sunset gradient in the sky. Red on the horizon, orange above, yellow above, and, for truly most of the sky, a pale blue. Without clouds to give dramatic clashes of alternate colors^1 , the sunset color band is very slim, as evidenced by trying to use a phone camera to take a picture.

        Now think about where the sun, earth, and moon are in space. You’re probably thinking of it wrong. The sun is extraordinarily large but also extraordinarily far. So far, in fact, that it appears the same size regardless of whether you’re on the earth, on the moon during a solar eclipse, or on the moon during a lunar eclipse. The variation is less than what we experience during a supermoon. While the Earth is much larger than the moon, they are significantly far apart for their size. Think of the picture of Earth taken by the Apollo astronauts. It’s pretty small, right? The Earth is about 4x bigger than the moon in diameter. Since, from Earth, the moon and sun both appear to be the same size (0.5deg of view across), we can estimate the Earth appears to be 2 degrees wide as seen from the moon. It can completely block the sun.

        But the Earth has a trick up its sleeve: the atmosphere. It refracts light. While we sit on a beach and watch the sunset over the ocean horizon, that color band is fairly narrow in horizontal width and incredibly short in vertical height. It feels like a pretty small event if you use a wide angle camera. But it’s not. The red band encompasses the Earth all the way around. When there’s a sunset seen from California, there’s a sunrise seen from India. Say we’re at an equinox, which means both North and South poles are also in a golden twilight. The sun lights half the planet at any given time, meaning that red/orange band of sunset colors is actually an entire ring around the planet all the time. Not all of that light lands on a photographer’s sandy toes. In fact, most of it passes all landmass and continues into space. With the blue light scattering in more directions that red, much of it gets reflected away from Earth and into space at all angles. Meanwhile, the red end of the spectrum fares better and continues straighter - but it DOES scatter to some extent, including into the shadow of the Earth. In the grand scheme of things, this is insignificant and unnoticeable. But, for us, from our unique vantage point between 3 bodies of shockingly similar apparent (visual) size, the effect is that the ring of red sunset/sunrise glow blurs the Earth s shadow enough to create a refracted red “shadow” onto the moon. But, as mentioned above, that halo of red refraction is still slim and quickly gives way to the oranges, yellows, and pale blues. That blends on the moon somewhat, making the red portion lean to one side while the opposing side appears more balanced in color.

        ^1 clouds are what make subsets look dramatic with the clashes of pinks and oranges and such. It’s not actually pollution. Pollution only works to dull out sunsets. Since clouds are at such great altitudes, they “experience” sunset a little bit later than a ground observer. This means while you see a red sun, the clouds see an orange sun. When you see orange sky, the clouds see yellow. The difference could be greater if you have higher clouds or closer if they’re lower. Or, of you’re lucky, all different altitudes such as when you see red sunset, fluffy orange clouds, and streaky yellow clouds in the Jetstream, all set in front of the pale blue sky. Clouds may block the view of the actual sunset, but they’re responsible for the most breathtaking sunset views.

        • young_broccoli@fedia.ioOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          7 hours ago

          I knew about what causses the moon to appear red but I never really thought about sunsets/rises beyond “its the atmosphere refracting light”. That was a very nice explanation about them. Thanks.

      • Xaphanos@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        12 hours ago

        Go out on a sunny day. Get in the shadow of a building - near the edge. Notice that you can know when the sun is close to becoming visible by the scattered light. One side is brighter.

        Now imagine being in orbit of earth. Watch the sun set behind it. You see the sky glowing in the direction of the sun. Same as the building. Same as regular sunsets.

        Now go to the moon. Because of the extreme distance, you can see the “sunset” entirely around the globe. That is the red glow. But one side of the moon is closer to the sunset, and (just like the building) that side is brighter.

        Does that help?

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      14 hours ago

      Just being bigger isn’t enough, distance plays a factor. The moon is much, much smaller than the sun, but almost entirely covers it during a solar eclipse.

  • cybervseas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    15 hours ago

    For a solar eclipse, to my knowledge, it’s just a happy accident that our moon is pretty much the right size to block out our sun. Isn’t that neat? A solar eclipse on every other planet in the solar system would end up being much less interesting.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      14 hours ago

      Unfortunately solar eclipses are going to get less neat over time, because the moon is gradually moving away from the earth.

      But that’s going to take thousands or millions of years, so in your lifetime it probably will still look just as neat.

    • young_broccoli@fedia.ioOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      14 hours ago

      Sorry, thats not my question. I misstyped solar instead of lunar so I take the blame.

      But I agree that its quite amazing how perspective wroks between the sun, earth, and the moon. Earth is also the right size tho block out the sun the same way when viewed from the moon. Would be hard to believe if we werent experiencing it tbh.