Blood moon eclipse on April 15

[Printer Bandit]

 

[flexy]

I am pretty much into astronomy since I was a little boy.

I always knew that a lunar eclipse makes the moon reddish. Most with a basic grasp on astronomy know this.

The US seems the only nation in the world where a lunar eclipse in the media is hyped up with a term like BLOOD MOON. I lived in Europe most of my life and there was no such term for an otherwise "normal" lunar eclipse, which (as to my knowledge) normally results in a reddish/brownish moon.

I do understand why it is called blood moon but cannot help thinking that how the US media portraits this event reminds me more of the Middle Ages than anything. For me this is worrying.

Has a lunar eclipse (which actually happens relatively often as compared to solar eclipses) ever been hyped up like that in the media with an emphasis it's a "BLOOD MOON!!" rather than just saying what it is actually is and then maybe as additional information in an article saying that a lunar eclipse sometimes is also being referred to as "blood moon". Not that I remember.

Now, do me a favor and ask 100 random average people who remember there was a "blood moon" and then ask yourself how many would actually know what caused it. I bet that MANY of them won't even know it was because of a lunar eclipse since most people won't dig further beyond but headlines, not in a time where the avg. attention span is measured in seconds and where "information" is reduced to one-liners in twitter.