At 12 midnight last night, my friend and I got crazy and drove 5km north, pulled over to an empty space to watch the Lunar Eclipse. Despite the -16 temperature and the cloudy state, it never stopped us from staying in and out of the car for few hours.
Today is the winter solstice and the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It's all due to Earth's tilt, which ensures that the shortest day of every year falls around December 21.
During the winter solstice the sun hugs closer to the horizon than at any other time during the year, yielding the least amount of daylight annually. On the bright side, the day after the winter solstice marks the beginning of lengthening days leading up to the summer solstice.
Coinciding with the winter solstice for the first time since 1638, the December 21, 2010, lunar eclipse was anything but ordinary.
Around 0030 (Central Standard Time), the moon began going slightly shady, marking the arrival of Earth's faint outer shadow, or penumbra.
The penumbra (from the Latin paene "almost, nearly" and umbra "shadow") is the region in which only a portion of the light source is obscured by the occluding body. An observer in the penumbra experiences a partial eclipse.
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