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In the Greek world on August 27, 413 B.C., Athenian officers misread the portent of a lunar eclipse that day. Instead of pulling their troops out of captured Syracuse, they decided to wait for another celestial omen and were attacked and defeated.
Lunar eclipses occur when the orbits of the Earth and moon line up approximately in the same plane, and the moon swings into the 900,000-mile shadow thrown by the Earth. When the moon merely grazes this shadow, a partial eclipse occurs, but when the entire moon passes into the shadow, it is totally eclipsed.
The light rays from the sun are bent or refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere as they skim across the edge of the Earth and streak on into space. The atmosphere traps most of the blue rays, but the red rays pass on through and eventually fall on the moon, giving it a reddish cast.
The August 16 lunar eclipse will begin at 7:06 p.m. EST with part of the moon growing gradually darker, then lighter until the eclipse ends at 11:40 p.m. Other August Sightings: Mercury: Low in western skies at sunset. Venus: Low in west, setting about an hour after sun. Jupiter: Visible in early evening, low in southwest. Saturn: Rises at midnight in Constellation Taurus. Moon: August 2-New moon; August 3-Apogee (farthest from Earth, 252,500 miles); August 10-First quarter; August 16-Full moon and eclipse; August 17-Perigee (closest to Earth, 221,900 miles); August 23-Last quarter; August 31-New moon.
Meteor shower: August 12, radiating from Constellation Perseus in northern skies. One of year’s richest displays of shooting stars.
(The foregoing sky material was prepared by David L. Moore of the National Geographic Cartographic Division.)
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