Total lunar eclipse Video

Total lunar eclipse Video Transcript

[ Music ] ^M00:00:03

>> As the moon goes around the earth, every once in a while, there's a perfect alignment of sun, earth and moon, so that the moon goes right through the shadow that earth casts into space. Most of the light is blocked out by the earth, but some of it slips past the atmosphere around the edges, sort of. And if you've ever looked at the sunrise or a sunset you know that the sun can look very red when it's low in the sky. And so basically, you have all the orange and red light from all the sunrises and sunsets around the world shining down onto the moon, which turns it to, kind of a rusty orange color. Now, if you were actually on the moon tonight, when the moon goes into the earth's shadow and you look back at the earth, what you'd see is a large black circle -- the earth rimmed by red light, which is all those sunrises and sunsets that the light slipping through the atmosphere being filtered through the atmosphere.

>> Astronomer Ben Burress tells us, there are between two and four lunar eclipses a year, but most of them are partial or grazing. For the next total eclipse, you're gonna have to wait until December 10 of the year 2010. I'm Kara Tsuboi, CNET News.com. ^M00:01:08 [ Music ]