A penumbral lunar eclipse occurred at the Moon’s ascending node of orbit on Friday, January 10, 2020,[1] with an umbral magnitude of −0.1146. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow, causing the Moon to be darkened. A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when part or all of the Moon's near side passes into the Earth's penumbra. Unlike a solar eclipse, which can only be viewed from a relatively small area of the world, a lunar eclipse may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of Earth. Occurring about 2.8 days before perigee (on January 13, 2020, at 15:20 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger.[2]
This eclipse was the first of four penumbral lunar eclipses in 2020, with the others occurring on June 5, July 5, and November 30.
This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight.
This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of lunar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.[5]
A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros).[6] This lunar eclipse is related to two partial solar eclipses of Solar Saros 151.
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