Inquiry Journal

10/06/2015   

My Inquiry Journal                                                                              

During my course of IB education, I got an opportunity to inquire into the things and write inquiry journal noting the observations and reflecting on the same. My first inquiry is on the recent Super Moon Eclipse.

Super moon Lunar Eclipse

My inquiry question about this event is:

“What is so special about the Total Lunar Eclipse of a Super moon of September 27/28, 2015? What is actually a Supermoon? Why this lunar eclipse is called as the Blood Moon?

The inquiry journal gave me an opportunity to write about my curiosity in science which always takes me to inquire about the things. Since childhood, I loved science, I am often interested in finding the reasons to the questions I had in my mind. The lunar eclipse that we all experienced on September 27, 2015 was one of a rare kind of lunar eclipse of Super moon. It was a special event for me because it was very clearly seen in some parts of US and we were fortunate to have a glimpse of it. I came out of my home in the patio to look for one of the rare event that happened in only 5 times in the 1900’s says NASA. I was curious to find out how it looks and why it is special. I was curious to know what the last time it happened was. Next lunar eclipse will not happen again for another 18 years until October 8, 2033. That’s why it is so special.    Lunar eclipses are spectacular and need no special eye wear for protection. They can be observed by naked eye unlike the solar eclipses.

There was news that this lunar eclipse is an eclipse of the Super moon. I wondered why the Super moon is so called. I found that Super moon is a full or a new Moon that occurs when the moon is at the nearest distance from the earth. Actually there is not a definite definition of a Super moon. Super moon during the winter times tend to look larger than other times in a year because of the distance of the earth and moon.  

I was then curious to inquire why it is called as the Blood moon. My curiosity led me to research about the blood moon. I came to know about different reasons why the moon was called as the “Blood Moon”. Some of the reasons I researched are:

·         In recent years, the term Blood moon has been frequently used to refer to total lunar eclipses. Some sources suggest that the term stems from the Bible. Christian pastors Mark Blitz and John Hagee claim that the eclipses of the 2014-2015 lunar tetrad fulfill a Biblical prophecy of forthcoming difficult and trying times.

·         Astronomers do not use Blood Moon as a scientific term. However, it is possible that the term came to describe total lunar eclipses because of the reddish color the eclipsed Moon takes on during totality. This happens because of Rayleigh scattering, the same mechanism that causes colorful sunrises and sunsets.(retrieved from  http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2015-september-28)

·         The full moon nearly always appears coppery red during a total lunar eclipse. That’s because the dispersed light from all the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets falls on the face of the moon at mid-eclipse. Thus the term blood moon can be and probably is applied to any and all total lunar eclipses. (information retrieved from http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-blood-moon-lunar-eclipses-2014-2015)

·         When you see the moon low in the sky, the extra air between you and the moon makes the moon look reddish. Voila. Blood Moon.( http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-blood-moon-lunar-eclipses-2014-2015)

I learnt about the Rayleigh scattering during my graduate and post-graduate science studies. That made it more interesting for me to keep researching on the kind of scattering of light moon showed during this lunar eclipse.

Reflection:

This inquiry helped me to reflect upon my own knowledge about the lunar eclipses. I was aware of all the facts that make a lunar eclipses and everything about the full moon and a new moon. But this event led me to dig into the facts about the Super moon and the Blood moon. My inquiry took me into the detail facts about the special eclipses. I could learn that the eclipses of the moon has different names: Harvest moon, the Hunter moon, the blood moon. The lunar eclipse that occurred this September was eclipse of the Harvest moon. This was the information I came across while researching about the eclipse.

The next day when I went to the school and greeted my students, one of students asked; “Did you see the blood moon?” I was so happy to share the information with my students and they were so excited to share their thoughts about what they saw and how they experienced about this rare event.