Of Coffee With Blood Moon

If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you to my tangle of words and ask if you have been to watch the last total lunar eclipse until the 14^th of  March 2025.

You know how the lunar eclipse happens because Earth will be casting its shadow over the moon, well if you are on the side of the world where it is day during the time of the alignment, then if you look up, all you see is the sun or a cloudy sky. So we will be missing out on the eclipse

The Lunar Eclipse is known as a Blood Moon because of its characteristic red colour. The Shona people refer to the blood moon as “mwedzi waora” meaning that the moon has gone rotten. It can either be a foreboding sign or herald good tidings, although it seems to be regarded more as ominous.

Why does the moon turn red? The moon turns red because the shadow cast by Earth on it is reddish due to the scattering effect of light which is also why sunsets and sunrise appear reddish/orange. If the shadow were completely black, the moon would disappear from the sky during the eclipse alignment.

During an eclipse the moon will be reflecting light from all the sunrises and sunsets happening as the Earth spins away on its axis day turning into night and night into day

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you somewhere up in the sky is the ZimSat-1, a Zimbabwean cube satellite that will be deployed from the International Space Satellite. The satellite started its journey as cargo on the Northrop Grumman resupply mission, The CRS18 Cygnus spacecraft is named after the first woman in space Sally Ride successfully launched on 7 November 2022.

I hadn’t seen images of the ZimSat-1 although I understood it was a small satellite, it had not clicked how small it would be until NASA shared an image of the cargo that included included Uganda’s PearlAfricaSat-1. The satellites are under the Birds Project Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Project-5 (BIRDS-5 Project) consisting of a constellation of two 1U CubeSats and one 2U CubeSat developed by Uganda, Zimbabwe and Japan, being Uganda and Zimbabwe’s first satellites.

The CubeSat satellites don’t look particularly satellitely to me but I know nothings about satellites. The units are equipped with sensors that should enable them to gather visual and spectral data on the surface conditions of the area being observed, as well as communicate with amateur radio stations. It is contemplated that the ZimSat-1 will help Zimbabwe in land, water and mineral mapping, including weather forecasting, infrastructure planning, border security and disaster prevention.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the Artemis-1 craft was rolled out onto launchpad 39B in preparation for a launch attempt on the 14^th of November… Launch has been aborted several times, will this one be the lucky November launch?

Elon Musk seems to be finding that taking over Twitter is not as easy as launching a car into space, I am curious if he will succeed in breaking the bird app. One of the major changes was making verification part of a subscription service $20 adjusted to $8 a month, I recognise this tactic. The changes have been facing mixed reactions and Mr Musk had said he is open to entertaining complaints but it will cost you $8 ha!

A Twitter exodus is predicted and there’s a quest to find an alternative app, some people have already left the social media platform but according to Elon, Twitter usage is at an all time high. Having been on the app for over a decade I am not leaving it anytime soon. I feel like a sailor who will sink with the captain hahaha I have survived Zimbabwe I think we can survive an eccentric billionaire.

 Does the blood moon signify anything to you other than as an interesting spectacle? What has been going on in your neck of the woods?

~B