The last stage of a total lunar eclipse will be seen from Egypt on September 28, Ashraf Latif Tadros of the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics has announced.
He explained that it will be a supermoon, which means the moon will reach the closest point to Earth. “The eclipse will be very clear because the moon will appear larger than usual,” he said. “The moon will be 356,896 km from Earth, as opposed to 360,000 to 410,000 km during normal times.”
Tadros said the supermoon appeared on January 20, February 18, March 20 and August 29 in 2015, and will appear again on September 28 and October 27, pointing out that the term “supermoon” was first coined by astrologer Richard Nolle over 30 years ago.
“The eclipse will be seen from Europe, West Asia, Africa and the Americas, except for the western half of Alaska,” he said. “It will last for five hours and thirteen minutes and 42 seconds.”
This will be the second and last eclipse in 2015, as the first was on April 4. “We had two lunar and two solar eclipses this year, of which three were seen from Egypt,” Tadros added.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
