The monks of the Middle Ages indirectly narrated the story that links lunar eclipses and volcanic eruptions. Today, scientists need important discoveries.
By: Angelica Andrade
As is understood, lunar eclipses are generated at the moment in which a satellite is obscured by the shadow of planet Earth that prevents the illumination by the Sun, causing the Moon to lose its characteristic brightness and reduce to a consumed circle of reddish color that differs according to particular characteristics of time and space.
This is how the renowned French researcher and astronomer, Camille Flammarion, verified in 1884 that in this circumstance the reddish color of the Moon during eclipses differs, suggesting for the time a connection with the cataclysmic eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, produced in the Sunda Strait. in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.
Consistent with the magnitude of the eruption, which is considered one of the most destructive and deadly events on record, with loud explosions heard 3,110 kilometers away near Perth in Western Australia. This also released a large amount of dust.
It may interest you: NASA presented the astronauts who will travel to the Moon
This link was recently analyzed with the eruption of the Philippine volcano Pinatubo, in 1991, as clarified to AFP, Sébastien Guillet, from the University of Geneva, lead author of the published research..
In this case, the mountain suffered a considerable transformation of erosion, despite the fact that it was covered by a thick forest where hundreds of inhabitants belonging to the Aeta community lived.
“I was listening to Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ album when I realized that the darkest lunar eclipses occur about a year after large volcanic eruptions,” Guillet told Nature magazine.
In this context, the eruptions created their footprint in frozen areas, evident through the analysis of cylindrical ice specimens, an essential tool to explain the climate thousands of years ago.