'Blood moon' expected Tuesday morning: When to see it in Minnesota

CATHY WURZER: Glad you're with us here on MPR News. I'm Cathy Wurzer. If you're one of those people who get up really early-- present company included since I get up at 2:00 AM-- there will be a treat waiting in the night sky for you. A blood moon lunar eclipse is expected. It's going to be the second lunar eclipse this year and the last one until 2025. The eclipse will start high in the Western sky just after 3:00 AM tomorrow.

Jill Jensen is with us right now. She's the President of the Minnesota Science Teachers Association and a seventh grade life science teacher at Scott Highlands Middle School in Apple Valley, because sometimes, you just need to ask a science teacher about what's going on out there. Hi, Jill. How are you?

JILL JENSEN: Hi. Good morning.

CATHY WURZER: Good morning. Say, what will this lunar eclipse look like?

JILL JENSEN: Well, if you get up really early, it will actually start as a full moon, and then it will very slowly shift into a darker color. And then when the full eclipse starts, as you said, it will be this really nice reddish hue. And it will remain that way for a while, and then it will slowly shift back again to the full moon.

CATHY WURZER: OK. So this kind of cool looking, reddish orange cast-- what's happening there specifically? It can look kind of spooky.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. So the shadow of the Earth is passing over the moon, and there are different versions of the shadow. There is what's called a penumbra, and then an umbra. When it gets to that darkest spot, that's when we really see it as red, and it has some to do with the sunlight that's still kind of passing by Earth that lets us to see that.

CATHY WURZER: OK. So for folks who are a little confused, what's the difference between a solar and a lunar eclipse?

JILL JENSEN: So if you put out your left hand and make a fist and imagine that's the sun and then if you put out your right hand and make a fist and imagine that's the Earth-- but now keep your right first there. And then if you take your left fist and move it behind your right fist-- and then that's the moon, so the Earth is blocking the sunlight from getting to the moon.

And so that's the lunar eclipse. And so the lunar eclipse happens usually during a full moon phase, and it would happen at night. And you don't need any special equipment or protective gear to see it. And as you said, we usually get about twice a year. The next one, as you said, though, isn't until 2025. So even though they happen twice a year, they don't always happen in a place that's visible for us.

So the visual that we also have in our heads frequently is that the moon is like in a parallel plane with us. If it was, we'd have an eclipse every single month, but we don't. We have a full moon every month. But what happens is the moon is actually five degrees off of where we are, and that's why we only get an eclipse twice a year.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, OK.

JILL JENSEN: It's not quite lined up with our shadow all of the time.

CATHY WURZER: Say, do when peak might be for folks who want to take a photo?

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. So the peak is actually a little bit better timing. The maximum eclipse I think was right around 5:00 in the morning, so a little better than getting up at 2:00.

CATHY WURZER: Right. I will get it as it's starting.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. So if you only want to see just the whole maximum eclipse, you can get up at 5:00. If you want to see the lead up to it, 4:15 is kind of when the full total eclipse begins.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Will you be out there, by the way?

JILL JENSEN: I do plan on getting up, but I think I might do the 5:00 version.

CATHY WURZER: That's OK. Talk to the kids about it. Oh, by the way, thank you for the visual. We appreciate that. Everyone on staff is doing the fist thing, by the way, in the control room. Thank you. So now about the solar eclipse--

JILL JENSEN: Yes. So the lunar eclipse is different from the solar eclipse. So the solar eclipse-- you have your fist as the sun and your fist as the moon, but then you'd have to insert something between those. So if you're flexible, you could stick your foot up there. Otherwise, you could put your thumb out from your left hand.

And so the solar eclipse happens during the day, and it's when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun. And that's when you need protective eye gear and to not look directly at the sun. And the last time we had a solar eclipse that we could see for North America was in 2017, and then the next one is coming up-- April 8 of 2024.

And I got a chance-- I took my two daughters and my mom down to see the solar eclipse-- the last time we had one-- down to Nebraska. And we were stuck in traffic for a good 12 hours coming home. So it's not too early to start thinking about the 2024 eclipse and where you might go. It's going to be making a trajectory from Carbondale, Illinois, through Cleveland, so a little bit south and east of us.

CATHY WURZER: So you went to see it. I remember I have a picture of Kerri Miller-- one of our hosts here-- Kerri Miller and yours truly with our viewing glasses staring up, and we were in the parking lot of MPR here in downtown Saint Paul. And we're oohing and ahhing and pointing-- and it was kind of fun, though. It really was.

JILL JENSEN: It really is. It's a really amazing experience. And if you get a chance to travel and see the whole complete full solar eclipse, it was a very magical experience. It got very dark. All these birds flew up and started flying around. It felt like the wind picked up, and it just felt sort of otherworldly for a brief period of time.

CATHY WURZER: Other science news I know you're following-- I hear you have some fun news in the insect world about bees.

JILL JENSEN: Yes, right. So last time I was on, I shared about how my students were learning about pollinators. And we went outside, and we actually collected data and made lots of observations. And I also want to give a shout out to-- during that segment, one of your listeners heard and actually contacted me and then volunteered to come out and share all of his knowledge about bees and beekeeping with my students.

So Mark Poppendeck is a beekeeper in one of the western suburbs and came and visited my classes, and it was an amazing experience. And my students got to ask all these questions and learn from a firsthand expert, so I was very grateful to have that opportunity.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, wow. Good. I'm glad we can connect people with you.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. It was so great.

CATHY WURZER: You're helping listeners, listeners helping you. That's fantastic. A little more science news-- I want to ask you about this. Well, last week we were talking to sculpture artist Dale Lewis. He told us about this herd of bison released in Spring Lake Park last month. What's that all about?

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. So it's very near and dear to my heart since I am down here in Dakota County. So Dakota County used to have, of course, tens of millions of bison and millions of acres of prairie, and now there's like less than 1/10 of 1% of that prairie remaining. And so there's been a lot of conservation efforts to restore prairie and bring prairie systems back.

But without the full use of the prairie, including the animals who called prairie home, it's left to human management. And we're finding that humans just don't manage the nature as well as nature manages itself. And so that herd of bison are going to help maintain that prairie. So by them grazing and mowing down the grasses, they leave more space for wildflower and plants.

Because they're such a large animal, their roaming around and rolling around actually creates depressions like watering holes within the prairie, too, which all adds to the health of that ecosystem. So small step to bringing things back. I'm pretty excited because it's actually pretty close to my house. We can bike there on a regular basis. And how fun to be able to bike by and see a herd of bison hanging out.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, no kidding. See, you're just full of information. This is why we call you, Jill. I hope you have a good day. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. Thank you. Have a great afternoon.

CATHY WURZER: Jill Jensen is President of the Minnesota Science Teachers Association and a seventh grade life science teacher at Scott Highlands Middle School in Apple Valley.