It’s Flashback Friday. Every Friday we bring back a golden oldie article from yesteryear. A chance for you to re-read it and see if it is still relevant today! From March 2007:
So today we had an eclipse of the moon. In fact it’s doing its stuff right now as I, er, write. Currently it’s a sort of red-orange colour.
Earlier on I thought it might be quite exciting. The moon was very low in the sky then and directly outside my window. Then it moved higher up. In fact it also looks further away, sort of smaller.
Typical! Here I am waiting to be entertained by the moon, and it’s gone all small and I’m having to squint to look at it properly. (Don’t you just hate it when things go all small and you have to squint?)
Anyway, there it is. And people on the radio are excited. They are calling in to say they can see it too. Together in our different boxes we are sharing a common activity – staring at the moon.
But why does it draw us so? I mean, all it is is a planet getting in the way of the direct path of sunlight to its moon. Yet, here we are squinting to see the slightly colourful result with no real fear.
Still, at least we’ve progressed a bit. Even up to a few hundred years ago, we’d have been out there sacrificing virgins and pleading for the moon-gods to stop being so red with anger such was our collective fear. Or maybe we’d be pretty sure it was a sign from one of our other gods that we’d been bad or good, or not handed over enough money or something.
I guess anybody living on the moon right now will be looking up to see a big black disc with an orangey-white halo around it where the Earth should be. They’ll be looking up and maybe calling their local moon radio station to discuss what they can see. I wonder if they know we’re staring back at them.
England's England 