Look Up Tonight and You’ll See a Comet, an Eclipse, and a Full Moon
Consider this your reward after a long work week: The heavens are set to go wild Friday with a full snow moon lunar eclipse and the closest brush Earth has had with a comet in three decades.
Friday’s event is being referred to as a “Full Snow Moon Penumbral Eclipse,” because of an old tradition in which each month’s moon was named to describe the time of year.
A meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor on Aug. 12, 2016 in Spruce Knob, West Virginia. Bill Ingalls / NASA, file
The eclipse is expected to start around 5:34 p.m. EST, with East Coast residents having the best view. Paul Cox, an astronomer at Slooh, told NBC News that East Coast residents should be able to see the spectacle “an hour or so into the eclipse when the moon has risen.”
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