Rare lunar event likely visible in Colorado this week, to be unmatched for nearly 650 years

Stay up late on Thursday night and you'll get a treat – if the skies are clear.

A near-total lunar eclipse is set to happen in the early morning hours of Friday morning – at about 2:02 AM – when just 3 percent of the moon will appear to be illuminated.

One nice aspect about this celestial event will be how long it lasts – a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Earth's penumbra, which is the lighter outer part of the shadow that the planet will cast on the moon, will start covering the moon at about 11:02 PM on Thursday, November 18. At 12:18 AM on Friday morning, the partial lunar eclipse will begin. The maximum lunar eclipse will take place at 2:02 AM, with the partial eclipse ending at 3:47 AM and the penumbral eclipse ending at 5:03 AM.

Believe it or not, this will actually be the longest partial lunar eclipse since February 18, 1440 – more than 580 years ago. Even more amazing, the next time a partial lunar eclipse will reach this length is in 2669 – close to 650 years.

As the lunar eclipse hits its peak around 2 AM, onlookers should expect to see a reddish hue appear. This is due to something called Rayleigh scattering, which is also responsible for colorful sunrises and sunsets, as well as the sky's blue color. As sunlight hits earth's atmosphere during the partial lunar eclipse and gets scattered in different directions, all colors are not equally scattered. While violets and blues tend to be removed from sunlight before it hits the moon, red and orange light can pass through the atmosphere, bending around the earth and then hitting the moon, resulting in these colors appearing on the surface.

Total lunar eclipses are rare, with the next one set to take place in May of 2022. Another one will occur in November of 2022, but it won't be until 2025 that the next one takes place.

Read more about this lunar eclipse here.

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