Earth, Moon, and Sun are about to achieve syzygy — a near-perfect alignment. The full Moon will pass through Earth’s long shadow tomorrow night, creating a total lunar eclipse. Like any object that’s standing in the sunlight, Earth casts a shadow. At the Moon’s distance from Earth, the dark inner shadow is about three times as wide as the Moon itself. The Moon’s orbit is tilted a bit with respect to Earth’s orbit around the Sun, though, so most months, the Moon passes above or below the shadow. But two or three times a year, on average, the geometry is just right, so the Moon passes through the shadow — creating an eclipse. This eclipse begins at 8:07 p.m. Central Time, when the lunar disk first touches the inner shadow, known as the umbra. The Moon will be fully immersed in the shadow a bit more than an hour later. Some sunlight will filter into the shadow, giving the Moon a dark red color. The Moon will remain in the shadow for about an hour and a quarter. It’ll spend another hour mo
