A total lunar eclipse occurred at the Moon’s descending node of orbit on Sunday, July 16, 2000,[1] with an umbral magnitude of 1.7684. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow, causing the Moon to be darkened. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon's near side entirely passes into the Earth's umbral shadow. Unlike a solar eclipse, which can only be viewed from a relatively small area of the world, a lunar eclipse may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of Earth. A total lunar eclipse can last up to nearly two hours, while a total solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes at any given place, because the Moon's shadow is smaller. Occurring about 1.1 days after apogee (on July 15, 2000, at 11:30 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was smaller.[2]
This was a relatively rare central lunar eclipse, where the Moon crossed the center of the Earth's shadow. Totality lasted for 106 minutes and 25 seconds, the longest duration since 13 August 1859 (106 minutes and 28 seconds) and 3 May 459 (106 minutes and 32 seconds), and totality of this length won't occur again until 19 August 4753 (106 minutes and 35 seconds). This was the last and longest total lunar eclipse of the 20th century as well as the second longest and last of the second millennium. It was also the eighth longest total lunar eclipse on EclipseWise's Six Millennium Catalog of Lunar Eclipses which covers the years 3000 BCE to 3000 AD. The longest total lunar eclipse between the years 4000 BCE and 6000 CE took place on 31 May 318. Totality lasted 106 minutes and 36 seconds which is only 11 seconds longer than this one.[3]
This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight. The first and last eclipse in this sequence is separated by one synodic month.
Lunar saros series 129, repeating every 18 years and 11 days, containing 71 events, has 11 total lunar eclipses. The first total lunar eclipse of this series was on May 24, 1910, and last will be on September 8, 2090. The longest occurrence of this series was on July 16, 2000 when totality lasted 106 minutes and 24.6 seconds.
Greatest
First
The greatest eclipse of the series occurred on 2000 Jul 16, lasting 106 minutes.
The inex series repeats eclipses 20 days short of 29 years, repeating on average every 10571.95 days. This period is equal to 358 lunations (synodic months) and 388.5 draconic months. Saros series increment by one on successive Inex events and repeat at alternate ascending and descending lunar nodes.
This period is 383.6734 anomalistic months (the period of the Moon's elliptical orbital precession). Despite the average 0.05 time-of-day shift between subsequent events, the variation of the Moon in its elliptical orbit at each event causes the actual eclipse time to vary significantly. It is a part of Lunar Inex series 40.
A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros).[6] This lunar eclipse is related to two total solar eclipses of Solar Saros 136.
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