It's coming!

Prophecy loves signs from the heavens, and they will deliver Tuesday
with a moonlight spectacle.

Get ready for an unusually beautiful moon to grace the night skies
next week. There will be a total lunar eclipse Tuesday that will
turn the moon a burnt reddish orange, NASA says.

It's called a blood moon, and this one is just the first in a series
of four consecutive total eclipses.

Within a year and a half, North America will be able to see a
blood moon a total of four times. The moon takes on this color
during the eclipse as it passes through the Earth's shadow,
which is the color of a desert sunset.

The four blood moons will occur in roughly six-month intervals
on the following dates: April 15, 2014; October 8, 2014;
April 4, 2015, and September 28, 2015.

With that frequency, one might be misled into thinking that
they are commonplace.

There are about two lunar eclipses per year, NASA says.
Some of them -- penumbral eclipses -- are so subtle, they
are vaguely visible and go greatly unnoticed.

Other eclipses just cast a partial shadow on the moon but
lend it none of that brilliant sunset hue.

Lunar eclipses -- penumbral, partial or umbral -- occur in
random order, NASA says. Getting four umbral eclipses in
a row is like drawing a rare lunar poker hand of four of a kind.

Just like the poker players, astronomers have a name for that
lucky draw. It's called a tetrad, NASA says.

"The most unique thing about the 2014-2015 tetrad is that all
of them are visible for all or parts of the USA," longtime NASA
eclipse expert Fred Espenak said in a prepared statement.

In the 21st century, there will be many tetrads, but look back
a few centuries, and you'll find the opposite phenomenon,
Espenak said.

Before the dawn of the 20th century, there was a 300-year
period when there were none, he said. Zero.

That would mean that neither Sir Isaac Newton, Mozart,
Queen Anne, George Washington, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln
nor their contemporaries ever had a chance to see one.

So, we're in luck. To take advantage of it, you'll have to stay
up late from Monday night into Tuesday.

People in North and South America will be able to see the
entire eclipse, while sky watchers in the western Pacific can
catch only the last half. The moon will be setting in most
of Europe and Africa during the eclipse, so residents there
probably won't see much.

OMG, I can feel another one of those weird Planet dreams coming on.
Yes and before anyone say's anything, I do know the moon is not a planet

....and it is scaring heck out of some People too!

Can you imagine how scared they must have been thousands of years ago. I bet a few got sacrficed.

Is the Moon a planet? By some definitions it may become one
in the distant future. The controversy over what makes a
celestial body a planet has been going on for decades. In fact
the planet Pluto became a casualty of that debate when it was
demoted to a planetoid. So if Pluto can get the axe as a planet,
then surely the Moon can be eventually promoted to being a planet.

However we have to go by the currently accepted understanding
of what a planet is.

According to the IAU a planet is any rocky body that has different
layers, is geologically active, and most importantly orbits the Sun.
We know that the Moon can easily fit these categories. First the
moon is a rocky body composed of many of the same elements that
the Earth is composed of. It also had volcanic activity in its past.
Even now the Moon still experiences detectable quakes so it is still
geologically active. The last is obvious in that it does orbit the Sun
it just also orbits Earth while doing it.

A new wrinkle in the definition of a planet could be just the thing to
put the Moon over the top in the future. According to the current
definition of a moon, it can’t become a planet if it orbits another planet
however it can be considered one if the center of gravity known as
the barycenter lies outside of the larger planet. Right now the Moon
is still solidly in the natural satellite category but each year it is
drifting further and further away in its orbit from the Earth. This
means that someday in the distant future scientists may consider
reclassifying it as a planet. However, that is if the definition for
what is a planet does not change in that time.

So in the end we know for certain that the Moon is not a planet.
It is a natural satellite by even the most current definition issued
by the IAU. However the question brings up the issue of how flexible
the definition of what makes a planet a planet becomes. In either
case it would be likely that tradition would remain too strong. The
moon has been the moon for millennia so it would be very unlikely
for astronomers to change its designation without very convincing
evidence to back it up.

http://www.universetoday.com/85749/is-the-moon-a-planet/

I'm impressed Soufie.
I would love to know who the man in the moon is. He must be bored up there all on his lonesome.

He was on Mingle2 for a while.
Banned for stalking.

I would have been VERY scared.
But then, mattress tags scare me.

There was a programme on a while back in the UK, all about stars and planets and things.
It said betelgeuse (beatlejuice) in the constelation of orion will die soon, soon being within the next 1 million years.
I couldn't help but think, well next week is within the next 1 million years.
There's a lot of debate about how it will affect us.

Watch this below, its amazing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

Ah, but how far away is it?

(Sorry, I cannot seem to get YouTube working.)

I've just Googled it.
It's 640 light years away, so not too far, and it's a super red giant up to 30 times bigger than our sun.
I'll let you do the maths.

I went and read up on it...seems like when it goes supernova
it will take 100,000 years to affect earth's ecosystem, and
that is after the 643 light years.

I think we are okay :-)

it depends what position Betelgeuse is when it goes supernova... if it's north or south pole is pointing towards earth when it happens, we could be wiped out much sooner with the release of the gamma rays, called a gamma ray burst...

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/bursts.html

.. oh I can't wait for it to happen..

lol, don't hold your breath...

Great..just great.
I may have to get religion.

don't drink the cool aid...

ooooo I hear dat.

I love them when they are out over the ocean just beautiful!

here is something to peruse!

http://www.bible.ca/pre-date-setters.htm

Library of Date Setters of
The End of the World!!!
Over 200 predictions and counting!