A Shadow on the Moon

IT WAS mid-August in Brazil​—a mild winter evening with a full moon hanging in a cloudless sky. People were out on their balconies or gathered along the road, setting up cameras on tripods or focusing binoculars. The air hummed with conversations, all of which had the same hush of anticipation.

Why all the excitement? It was August 16, 1989. At 10:21 p.m. a complete lunar eclipse was to begin. Here, out in the country where the air is clean, the view promised to be spectacular. Right on schedule, the moon began to creep into the shadow that the earth casts into space. Just like the earth, the shadow is curved. Back in the fourth century B.C.E., that simple observation helped the Greek philosopher Aristotle to determine that the earth must be round.

As the moon entered deeper into the shade, the spectators began to “ooh” and “ah” appreciatively. The moon was turning orange. Just as it does in a beautiful sunset, the earth’s atmosphere was bending the sun’s rays, filtering out the blue rays of light and letting the red and orange ones through unhindered. After 97 minutes, the moon was completely ensconced in shadow. Later, it began to reemerge, slowly easing itself back into the sunlight.

Some of the moon watchers that night stayed up until 2:00 a.m. to see the whole show. They felt it was worth it. They had seen a remarkable display of the power and wisdom of the Creator of the universe. The Bible says that he made ‘the two great luminaries, the greater for dominating the day and the lesser for dominating the night,’ which were to “serve as signs and for seasons and for days and years.”​—Genesis 1:14, 16.