DON'T CALL IT A BLOOD MOON. OR SUPERMOON. OR BLUE MOON

LAST WEDNESDAY, HUMANITY was treated to a celestial feast for the eyes: A supermoon (meaning it was relatively close to Earth), but also simultaneously a blood moon (it was orange or red), but also simultaneously a blue moon (the second full moon in one calendar month), it passed in the shadow of Earth, for a total lunar eclipse. It looked awesome.

But supermoon? Blue moon? Blood moon? Hang on, let's think about these names.

So we saw a "blood" moon. But … hold on. This term has been made popular by religious zealots that keep proposing that it's the end of the world. The term has been around for centuries, even the Bible says something about a blood moon. Many things can make the moon look red: forest fires, for instance, or a volcanic eruption. It's never blood though, and so far it's never signaled the end of the world.

The next term, the supermoon, is kind of problematic as well. A supermoon is, I'm sorry to say, really not all that super. The supermoon that we saw on January 31 was the second "supermoon" of the year and it'll be followed by 12 more this year.

Now, the third: the blue moon, which means there's two full moons in a month, but this really depends on where you happen to be on Planet Earth, because one person's 'blue moon' is another person's 'not a blue moon'. In one time zone you might get two full moons in a month, in another time zone that same month might only get one full moon. The moon didn't invent the calendar—humans did.

So, what happened last Wednesday? A total lunar eclipse, it was orange or red or even brownish. Call it that, a beautifully breathtaking total lunar eclipse.

It was visually gorgeous, I took pictures of it. It almost certainly wasn't the end of the world.

▍生词好句

the end of the world: if we say "sth. is not the end of the world", then it might feel like a bad situation at this moment, but it will not cause very serious problems. So we use "it's not the end of the world" for saying that sth. is maybe not as serious as you think it is to tell someone that a problem is not as bad as it seems.

I'm sorry to say: it means the information I'm giving you might be a little bit disappointing or negative.

this depends on where you happen to do sth.: (举例讲解) Everyone says London is a beautiful city but this really depends on where you happen to live in London. (Meaning some parts are nice, some parts are not so nice.)

one man's X is another man's Y: There's a famous English expression, "One man's meat is another man's poison." The expression was first written by the Roman poet Lucretius, and the original meaning is a situation where two people disagree over something. So we use "one man's meat is another man's poison" to emphasise that different people like different things.

▍6 fun moon facts

1. The moon seems larger when it's nearer the horizon.

2. The moon is moving away from the Earth at the rate of 4 centimeters a year.

3. The full moon makes people go crazy and do strange things. Except, they don't.

4. The moon doesn't orbit / spin around the Earth; it travels with the Earth and revolves around the sun.

5. There are moon trees on Earth.

6. The moon could possibly solve Earth's energy problems.