48 years ago this July, Apollo 11 blasted off on it’s three day journey to the moon. On July 21st 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first human to step foot on the moon. Mankind looked on in awe. It was the dawn of a new era, heralding in what was to be a fantastic voyage of discovery that started with the moon, moved to Mars and beyond and eventually further into our solar system and perhaps even journeying to neighbouring star systems.
The moon shines by acting like a mirror and reflecting the light from the sun towards earth. As the moon orbits the earth, sometimes the moon will pass into the shadow of the earth cast by the sun, as the sun earth and moon line up in space. When this happens, observers on earth experience a dimming of the moon. This is a lunar eclipse. There are three different types of lunar eclipses. A total lunar eclipse, a partial lunar eclipse and a penumbral lunar eclipse.