NASA’s Simulated Video Of Supermoon Eclipse Previews Once-In-A-Generation Event

On September 27, Earthlings will be treated to something very rare, the kind of celestial event that comes along once in a generation: a supermoon eclipse. In anticipation of this display, NASA has released a video showing what it would look like.

But the simulated video captures the event from the lunar surface, as the Earth creeps across the stars to plant itself in front of the sun, the Huffington Post reported.

In the video, the dark mass of Earth passes in front of the sun to blot out all light, extinguishing the silvery expanse of the lunar horizon and plunging the blackness of space into even blacker shadow. The blue planet is then encircled by brilliantly red streams of light, as the sun’s rays pass through the atmosphere.

NASA’s preview video simulates this remarkable sight in honor of the event’s rarity, though alone, a supermoon and a lunar eclipse are quite ordinary

“Because the orbit of the moon is not a perfect circle, (it) is sometimes closer to the Earth than at other times during its orbit,” NASA’s Noah Petro of the Goddard Space Flight Center told Phys.org. “When (its) farthest away it’s known as apogee, and when it’s closest it’s known as perigee. On Sept. 27, we’re going to have a perigee full moon—the closest… of the year.”

At perigee, the celestial body is 31,000 miles closer than it is at apogee, making it appear 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter.

“There’s no physical difference in the moon,” he said. “It just appears slightly bigger in the sky. It’s not dramatic, but it does look larger.”

If that wasn’t dramatic enough, this time around an eclipse is being thrown into the mix. Scientists know when they’re coming, just by figuring out the location of the Earth, sun, and moon; NASA has eclipses for the next thousand years.

“It’s just planetary dynamics … When the rhythms line up, you might get three to four eclipses in a row or a supermoon and an eclipse happening.”

This year, the eclipse has very good timing — and it happens only once in a generation.

Once very few decades, the planetary bodies align perfectly enough for the supermoon and eclipse to occur in the sky at the same time. The last time this alignment happened was 1982 and it won’t happen again until 2033.

Hopefully, when it arrives on September 27 around 9 p.m. — to last a full hour — the weather will be pleasant and the skies clear enough to catch it. Because while NASA’s video is cool, seeing the show in person would be so much better.

[Photo Courtesy Tom Pennington / Getty Images]