Bloody Moon - La Lune Rouge

"I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and blillows of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Acts 2:19-21 (NIV)


A few days ago, i observed that the moon was not it's usual pearly-white color, but was instead an orangy red. I wanted to know why. Well, after talking to a close friend and doing some reading, i think i may have found the answer to my question.

Okay, certain astronomical conditions will cause the moon to appear red or copperish red, so red moons are usually visible at the time of total lunar eclipse. This is one reason why the moon would appear red, but there was no lunar eclipse when i saw the 'red' moon, so that wasn't the answer to my question.

I went on searching...

The moon exhibits a bloody color due to sunlight refracting or bending through the earth's atmosphere. Wildfires or volcano eruptions could be the cause of the change in color that happens to the moon. Basically, what happens is there is a high content of ash or oily-smoke containing a lot of 1-micron particles. These ash and dust clouds thrown into the atmosphere by fires and volcanic eruptions usually contain a mixture of particles with a wide range of sizes. Most are smaller than 1 micron, and they tend to scatter blue light. This kind of cloud makes the moon turn red. So, dust particles in the earth's atmosphere removes much of the bluer colors in the sunlight so only the redder colors make it to the moon. Thus, la lune est rouge.

Sure enough, in the newspaper the next day, there was a report of a volcano eruption in Indonesia.