☀️+🌕=😍Eclipses: How a terrifying celestial event became fun

Later this week, the longest lunar eclipse of the century is [coming to a continent near you]( July 27, stargazers across much of the world (sorry North America—better luck next time 👇) will be treated to over an hour and a half of a blood-red moon. (You can find the time in your locality by [entering your location here]( [LE2018-07-27T_colorcorrected](EclipseWise) Excitement over this event may not reach the fever pitch of a solar eclipse; last summer’s total eclipse in the mainland US—the first of the social media era—was a bigger event on Facebook [than the Super Bowl](. Taylor Swift used it to [tease an album](. But this is the second spectacular lunar eclipse this year, after January’s [“super blue blood moon.”]( And it will no doubt [light up our social streams](. These days, eclipses are a happy event, a way to enjoy a collective moment of wonder. “Neighbors and co-workers and strangers who happened to have picked up protective glasses or made paper contraptions were in a sharing mood,” [wrote]( Kathryn Jean Lopez of the 2017 solar eclipse. “And goodness, for once people weren’t gawking at Donald Trump.” (Well, until he [glanced at it]( without eclipse glasses.) But eclipses weren’t always greeted with such enthusiasm. 🐦 [Tweet this]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Brought to you by [Quartz Obsession] Eclipses July 23, 2018 Pink moon is on its way --------------------------------------------------------------- Later this week, the longest lunar eclipse of the century is [coming to a continent near you]( July 27, stargazers across much of the world (sorry North America—better luck next time 👇) will be treated to over an hour and a half of a blood-red moon. (You can find the time in your locality by [entering your location here]( [LE2018-07-27T_colorcorrected](EclipseWise) Excitement over this event may not reach the fever pitch of a solar eclipse; last summer’s total eclipse in the mainland US—the first of the social media era—was a bigger event on Facebook [than the Super Bowl](. Taylor Swift used it to [tease an album](. But this is the second spectacular lunar eclipse this year, after January’s [“super blue blood moon.”]( And it will no doubt [light up our social streams](. These days, eclipses are a happy event, a way to enjoy a collective moment of wonder. “Neighbors and co-workers and strangers who happened to have picked up protective glasses or made paper contraptions were in a sharing mood,” [wrote]( Kathryn Jean Lopez of the 2017 solar eclipse. “And goodness, for once people weren’t gawking at Donald Trump.” (Well, until he [glanced at it]( without eclipse glasses.) But eclipses weren’t always greeted with such enthusiasm. 🐦 [Tweet this]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( What’s so special about a lunar eclipse? --------------------------------------------------------------- A lunar eclipse isn’t the same spectacle as a solar eclipse: The darkness cast doesn’t have the same contrast. But both result from a similar spatial arrangement: the earth, sun, and moon aligning neatly. In the case of a solar eclipse, the moon casts a shadow on the earth. In a lunar eclipse, the roles reverse and the earth casts a shadow on the moon. [lunfig_colorcorrected](UFSC) The earth typically experiences between one and four lunar eclipses a year. A tiny fraction of those take place in July, when the earth is as far as it can be from the sun, and thus able to cast the widest shadow on the moon. Even fewer lunar eclipses occur when the moon passes through the center of the earth’s shadow, which increases the length of the lunar eclipse. [center-shadow_colorcorrected]The expected path of the moon through the earth’s shadow on July 27. (EclipseWise) Giphy Brief History There’s a bad moon on the rise --------------------------------------------------------------- When a couple planned their wedding during the solar eclipse, the Chicago Tribune [asked]( an astrologer for his wisdom. “(Eclipses) aren’t associated with nice things. They just aren’t,” he answered. And that’s true for virtually all of history. One of the first historical records of an eclipse is of a blood moon from the Enuma Anu Enlil astrological tablets from the ancient city of Ur, and historians believe that Sumerians of the time understood the eclipse as an [omen]( of the murder of a past king by his son in 2094 BC. Things went even worse for the Athenian army in 413 BC. Preparing a retreat from a failed invasion of the Peloponnesian colony of Syracuse, the superstitious Athenian leader Nicias postponed it for nearly a month after being spooked by a lunar eclipse. The Syracusans took advantage of the delay and used it to kill [nearly 30,000 Athenian soldiers](. It was a final turning point in a war that eventually [destroyed Athenian democracy](. Constantinople’s fall is [associated with a lunar eclipse](. Christopher Columbus used his foreknowledge of a blood moon to [scare the indigenous Arawak people]( into feeding his men. Our perception of the phenomenon began to change with the advance of science. [The first eclipse map]( impressively accurate for its time, was created in 1654 by German astronomer Erhard Weigel. 1706 brought the first eclipse map showing the umbral path (the dark core of the eclipse shadow) and the totality duration for major European cities. In 1715, the brilliant young astronomer Edmond Halley made his predictive map of an eclipse, and [things just kept getting better from there](. In the Victorian era, scientific pursuits bloomed as a hobby, creating [the first generation of eclipse chasers]( scientists and amateurs—who set out on expeditions to observe and experiment. Eclipses became fun. Our current eclipse boom is a supercharged version of Victorian popular science media, or for that matter, anything before this point; longtime eclipse-chaser Brian Brewer [told]( the Seattle Times that he had to hunker down at the library and call the US Naval Observatory when the 1979 eclipse sparked his interest. Now it’s as simple as clicking any of the links in this email. Brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise Technology is evolving faster than we can keep up with. --------------------------------------------------------------- That’s why we need some help. Say hi to Hugo, a chatbot that knows all about the tech of the future. Whether it’s underwater drones, algorithmic trading, or hybrid IT, Hugo is here to tell you all about it.[Meet your new bot best friend.]( by the digits [68,000:]( Increase in sales of Nick Drake’s song “Pink Moon” the year after it was used in a VW commercial [10%:]( Decline in Netflix streaming during the 2017 solar eclipse [13,000:]( Daily sales of eclipse glasses by American Paper Optics prior to the eclipse [100,000:]( Visitors who packed into Madras, Oregon, population 7,000, during last year’s solar eclipse, just one of many [“eclipse boomtowns”]( across the US [536,000:]( Increase in cars on the road in Wyoming during the solar eclipse [636,294:]( Number of registered cars and trucks in Wyoming [6,585.32:]( Days in a Saros cycle, an eclipse pattern discovered by Babylonian astronomers AP Photo/Seth Wenig This One Weird Trick Testing 1... 2... 3 --------------------------------------------------------------- Why does the moon turn red during a total lunar eclipse? It’s simple (and also not): [Rayleigh scattering]( the same process that makes sunsets red. The earth’s atmosphere [“filters” blue light]( and red light passes through to the moon. And as with sunsets, atmospheric conditions can make a lunar eclipse more, or less, visually spectacular. Scientists are using these phenomena [with the earth as a test subject]( to investigate far-off exoplanets—by observing the earth from afar with a space telescope, we might be able to use how we see ourselves to understand conditions on planets in the depths of space. 🌕😍🗯let's talk! Have you seen an amazing eclipse? Discuss now with other [Obsession Obsessives on Reddit](. Be the first to join our new community and take us down a 🐰🕳 of your own! Giphy Pop Quiz The original title of Bonnie Tyler's “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was: “Vampires in Love”“Turn Around, Bright Eyes”“The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas”“Dancing in the Dark” Correct. American songwriter Jim Steinman—a longtime producer for Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler with an extensive background in musical theater—originally wrote it for a Nosferatu musical. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Watch This! After the 2017 solar eclipse, NASA put together a little video mixtape of what different spacecraft captured from their perspectives. Look at This! Total eclipse of the art --------------------------------------------------------------- The first good photo of a solar eclipse was [taken in 1851]( by Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski, “said to be the most skilled daguerreotypist in the Prussian city of Königsberg.” Before that, anyone not in their paths had to rely on artists—but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. As Rebecca Boyle [writes]( in The Atlantic, painters were arguably better at capturing the figurative atmospherics of the event. Possibly the first accurate painting of an eclipse is a [1735 work]( by the German artist and architect Cosmas Damain Assam; while religious in nature, it’s scientifically rigorous, showing not just the corona but the “diamond ring” effect created when the sunlight shows through the moon’s mountains. During last year’s solar eclipse, the contemporary art world contributed to the documentation—[on social media]( just like the rest of us. Such a sight is a perfect fit for Kara Walker, legendary for her silhouettes, but she found inspiration in a different place. Timeline [3340 BC:]( (Maybe) the first depiction of an eclipse [c. 2150 BC:]( Emperor Chung K’ang reportedly beheads his court astronomers for not predicting one [585 BC:]( The first accurate prediction of an eclipse [150 BC:]( Hipparchus of Nicaea uses two observations of an eclipse to estimate the distance between the earth and the moon, with about 80% accuracy [c. 87 BC:]( Greeks create the Antikythera mechanism, the first analog computer, which can be used to predict eclipses and other astronomical phenomena [c. 1020:]( Arabian scientist Alhazen describes how a camera obscura can be used for safe viewing [1816:]( Cassian Hallaschka creates the Elementa Eclipsium, “the first true canon of eclipses” [1917:](