KEVIN LOLLAR

KLOLLAR@NEWS-PRESS.COM

Media types are going loony over Tuesday's total lunar eclipse, and some people see it and three more lunar eclipses over the next two years as a divine sign.

During the eclipse, which begins at about 2 a.m. and reaches totality at 3 a.m., the moon might turn red, maybe even blood-red, so many in the media are using the phrase "blood moon," which looks good (and ominous) in a headline.

One person who's not using the phrase is Carol Stewart, astronomer at the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium.

"All the blood-moon talk is bunk," Stewart said. "The reason the moon turns some shade of red is purely scientific. It's pure physics."

Despite all the blood-moon talk, the moon probably won't be blood-red during Tuesday's eclipse, said Rich Talcott, senior editor of Astronomy magazine.

"There are actually a range of colors the moon can get during an eclipse," he said. "It can be coppery red; it can be brick red. It can occasionally be blood red, but you don't expect that."

So, here's why a totally eclipsed moon can be various shades of red:

A total lunar eclipse happens when the earth passes between the sun and the moon, so the moon is in the earth's shadow.

Remember: The moon doesn't emit light; we only see it because the sun's light shines on it.

So, why can we see the moon at all during a total eclipse?

Because the earth's atmosphere bends some of the sun's light around the edge of the earth, and that light falls on the moon.

So, why is the eclipsed moon red instead of white?

Two reasons:

First, the sun's light is made up of the colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet; each color has a different wave length, with red having the longest and violet the shortest).

Second, the earth's atmosphere is full of particles — dust, smoke from forest fires and ash from volcanoes — that block the colors with short wave lengths (the blue end of the spectrum) and let the long-wave-length colors (the red end of the spectrum) pass through.

Those long-wave-length colors fall on the moon during an eclipse, and, bingo, a red moon.

"If we had no atmosphere, the moon would be totally black when it moved into the earth's shadow," Stewart said. "The shades of red vary from eclipse to eclipse because of the factors going on in the atmosphere. The more dust in the atmosphere, the deeper the shade of red."

How red will the moon be during Tuesday's eclipse?

"Nobody can tell for sure, except in cases when there's a large volcano eruption before the eclipse," Talcott said. "That can throw a bunch of ash and stuff into the atmosphere, and that can block a fair amount of light. In those cases, the moon can look dark red or even gray."

People who are up for the eclipse will see a double-red show: Mars, the red planet, will be 9 degrees from the moon.

"This is the closest Mars has been to us in six years, so it will be shining pretty brightly; that'll be cool," Talcott said. "Because the full moon will be up all night, you'll be able to go out and watch the moon and mars as it gets dark. Then, as the moon starts to fade during the eclipse, Mars will come more to the fore, and it will be interesting to compare colors."

Another thing that has people talking is the that Tuesday's eclipse is the first in a tetrad, which is when four total lunar eclipses occur without a penumbral eclipse (the moon passes through the pale edge of the earth's shadow) or partial eclipse (the moon passes deeper into the earth's shadow, but not all the way) occurring in between.

Mark Biltz, author of "Blood Moons," points out that all four eclipses (Oct. 8, April 4, 2015, and Sept. 28, 2015) happen on Jewish holidays (Passover and the Feast of the Tabernacles) which means God "is sending big-time warnings from his heavenly billboards," though he doesn't say what we're being warned about.

And televangelist John Hagee, author of "Four Blood Moons," says that "in these next two years, we're going to see something dramatic happen in the Middle East involving Israel," though a more startling prophesy would be that nothing dramatic will happen in the Middle East involving Israel over the next two years.

But, ultimately, if you're talking about to lunar prophesies, it's hard to beat John Fogerty: "I see the bad moon arising;/ I see trouble on the way/ I see earthquakes and lightnin'/ I see bad times today."