Stargazers could be in for a double treat tonight, with the potential for an aurora along with the first super blood moon over New Zealand in nearly 40 years.
For 14 minutes starting at 11.11pm tonight, the combination of a full moon, the moon being at its closest point to Earth and a total lunar eclipse will make the moon appear rusty red in colour and larger than usual.
Astronomer Ian Griffin told Breakfast today there is also the possibility of an aurora, or natural light show, tonight.
“Auroras are harder to predict. We know a couple of days ago a sunspot on the sun basically exploded and sent material towards the Earth. We know it’s coming towards the Earth, we don’t quite know when it’s going to arrive,” he said.
“It will be spectacular this evening if this full-on aurora happens during the eclipse. That is really quite rare if that happens.”
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Regardless of whether an aurora occurs, Griffin said the super blood moon is worth waking children up for.
“What happens is during what we call a total eclipse of the moon, the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon so the Earth cuts off sunlight that is usually illuminating the bright full moon and the only light that reaches the full moon has to pass through the Earth’s atmosphere,” he said.
“So tonight if there was an astronaut standing on the moon during the eclipse and looking towards the Earth, they’d see the dark Earth surrounded by all of the sunsets all at once, it’d be beautiful sight.
"If your kids haven’t seen a total eclipse of the moon, get them up tonight 'cause it’s something which is really spectacular, seeing that bright full moon slowly change over the course of about 80 minutes.”
The celestial event will begin tonight at 9pm with a shadow appearing across the moon, Griffin said.
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