NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
At 2 a.m. Tuesday, the Earth will begin positioning itself between the Sun and the Moon in first of four total eclipses that will occur between now and September 2015. The phenomenon is known as a tetrad, because the moon is completely covered by the Earth’s ”umbral shadow” ’ for four eclipses in a row, as opposed to only partial eclipses that fall in the outer penumbra. Rather than going completely dark, the moon ends up glowing red as it receives the refracted light spilling over the earth’s circumference. The “blood moon” phenomenon tends to be rare, with at times 300 years between them. Certain religious leaders also treat the “blood moons” as a sign of warning from God because there are references to the celestial bodies in the Bible. “God uses the sun, moon and stars to send signals to us on the earth,” Pastor John Hagee of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas said. “Something is about to change.”