Bhubaneswar: The century’s longest lunar eclipse will take place tonight, giving the stargazers across the world a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the rare celestial display. Scientists have term it as the ‘blood moon’ that will be visible to naked human eye in a reddish colour.
The eclipse, the Sun, the Earth and the Moon are in perfect line, will last for 1 hour and 43 minutes. The celestial spectacle of the bright and shining moon will turn into red will be visible from all parts of the world.
The eclipse will start at around 11.54 pm as per Indian Standard Time (IST) and the total eclipse will begin at 1.02 am. The greatest eclipse, when the moon will be transformed into deep blood red, will be at 3.49 am.
Cooking and intake of food as well as all the rituals at the Jagannath Temple in Puri will be suspended from 2.54 pm, just nine hours before the beginning of the eclipse.
However, the restriction of having food during eclipse is not applicable to the children, elderly persons and patients.
As per the usual practice, the rituals in temples will resume with holy bath of the idols after total eclipse. So also people can take food after taking a bath and purifying their houses with holy water after completion of the lunar eclipse.
Meanwhile, ahead of the mega event, the planetarium in Bhubaneswar is organising some awareness programmes. Similarly, Mars will also come closest to Earth for the first time in more than fifteen years and all set to shine even more brightly than the largest planet Jupiter.
PNN
