The residents of the Kingdom will be able to witness a rare, partial lunar eclipse tonight. The eclipse will be the first and the last to occur this year and will last for only 27 minutes.
The Kingdom last witnessed a partial lunar eclipse nearly 40 years ago, on Feb. 21, 1970, though it was short-lasting and was not visible to the naked eye.
Mulhem Mohammed Hindi, an astronomical researcher, member of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences (AUASS) and a member of the Al-Hijaz Nebula Astronomy Team, said that the eclipse that is expected to occur tonight is classified as one of the very rarest kinds of the partial lunar eclipses because the portion of the moon that will enter the Earth’s umbral shadow is no more than one percent, a small percentage that can hardly be seen by the naked eye. The duration of the eclipse is also rare since the shortest lunar eclipse was observed in 2009 lasted a whole hour, with only a 6.5 percent blockage of the moon.
Hindi pointed out that the eclipse is the only real eclipse that will take place during the year 1434 AH and that the next eclipse is expected to take place in the Kingdom on 15 Dhul-Hijjah of the year 1436, which corresponds to September 2015.
The eclipse will begin at 10:54:04 pm, when the portion of the moon will enter the Earth's shadow and end at 11:21:04 pm.
The lunar eclipse can only be seen in Australia, Asia, Europe and Africa. A rare coupling of the Moon with the planet Saturn associates with the eclipse, as Saturn will be close to the moon and will appear as a yellowish glossy star.
A lunar eclipse can only occur with a full moon and only if the moon passes through a portion of the earth's shadow called the umbra.
