Rare Celestial Phenomenon Today

People of Odisha are waiting with bated breath to witness a rare celestial phenomenon as blue moon, supermoon and blood moon will coincide during the total lunar eclipse on Wednesday evening.

This will be the first lunar eclipse of this year and second full moon in the month which is called the “Blue Moon”. During the eclipse, the colour of the moon will appear crimson.

The “Blood Moon” occurs during total lunar eclipse. When the moon gets shadowed by earth, the sunlight passes through the earth’s atmosphere and breaks down. The red part of the sunlight gets least refracted, giving moon the tinge of orange and red.

At the time of the eclipse, the moon gets closer to earth by 60,000 km against the average distance between the moon and the earth. As a result, it appears brighter and bigger. This is called “supermoon”.

This rare phenomenon will be visible in large parts of the US, north-eastern Europe, Russia, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, and Australia. The rare lunar eclipse will appear for the first time in over 150 years.

In Odisha, the partial eclipse would begin at 5.17 PM, total eclipse at 6.21 PM and end at 8.41 PM.

As per Hindu almanac, there will be no ritual in any temples. Keeping this in view, servitors of Shri Jagannath temple in Puri had performed early rituals of the Lords by 6.25 AM on Wednesday.

The Hindu almanac has advised the people not to take cooked food after 6.25 AM as taking food after the prescribed time will have adverse effect on health.

Meanwhile, people in Bhubaneswar have thronged the Pathani Samanta Planetarium in large numbers to witness the rare celestial phenomenon.