During what phase of the moon can there be a lunar eclipse?

During a lunar eclipse, our natural satellite passes behind our planet and gets into its shadow. This happens only with Earth in a position exactly between the Sun and the Moon. So, such an eclipse can occur only when the Moon is full. A lunar eclipse may be viewed at night from any place on Earth. Actually, the coincidence on the sizes of the Sun and the Moon is a great miracle of our planetary system: even if the Sun is 400 times greater in size than the Moon, it's also about 400 times farther away from Earth! That's why they occur the same size in the sky, which also makes the lunar eclipses possible to happen.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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34 Comments

JRW

Vaughan Smith, clearly in relation to an eclipses, area is being discussed. Not volume. So the 400 value IS correct

Vaughan Smith

Always some smart comments from uninformed people. The DIAMETER of the sun is about 400 times that of the moon. Strictly speaking, size refers to VOLUME which would make the sun about 65 million times the size of the moon.

June

Surely has to be a Full Moon.

JILL

I had the same question twice in the same quiz

Iancompat

I assume the "400 times the size" is just a demo figure, seeing as how the Sun is like 5 Million times bigger than the Moon!

Iancompat

Jim Adams, ?

allysweets

drmargiem, actually I don’t think Ron was trying to be rude, I think he was referring to Carly Simon’s song, “You’re so vain” .... going to Nova Scotia and seeing a total eclipse of the sun