Judy Ross, Age 12, of Sulphur Springs Texas., for her question:

 What really happens when the moon is eclipsed?

The whole of 1962 went by without giving us a single chance to see an eclipse of the moon. But in 1960 the sky watchers of North America were treated to two magnificent lunar eclipses. And so it goes. In some years we get none, in some years we get one and in other years we get two eclipses of the moon. Once in a great, great while there are three lunar eclipses in a single year.
North America must wait for its next lunar eclipse until December 30 of 1963. The awesome spectacle will last for about three and a half hours and for one hour and twenty four minutes our moon will be totally eclipsed in the coppery, red shadow of its mother planet, the earth. The year 1963 will corns to a close with this dramatic, heavenly spectacle.
The round earth, the moon and all the solid bodies of the Solar System have shadows pointing out into space. You cast a shadow because your solid body shuts off some of the beaming rays of the sun. So it is with our big, round earth. Its solid globe shuts off some of the beaming rays of the sun and casts a long tapering shadow far out into space. It tapers forth, of course, from the night side of the earth which is facing away from the sun.
The moon orbits around and around the earth and once each month it zoorns by the pointing finger of the earth’s shadow. This occurs when the moon is full   when its orbit takes it around farther from the sun than we are. Its golden face is lit with sunlight and the earth is between it and the sun. Since this orbital swing occurs every month we might expect a lunar eclipse every month.
We do not get a lunar eclipse every month because the old moon travels a wobbly orbit which tales it sometimes above and sometimes below the pointing finger of the earth's shadow. But once in a while the moon’s orbit swings right through the earth's shadow and we sea a lunar eclipse. But strange to say, the shadow of our solid earth does not blot out the golden moon with blackest midnight. This is because our beautiful planet wears a halo. Its blanket of fuzzy atmosphere catches the sunbeams high above the solid earth and bands them into the tapering shadow. It is this soft, rosy shadow which falls on the face of the moon. In a lunar eclipse the full moon with all its markings merely turns a dull, coppery red.
The earth's tapering shadow points about 900,000 miles out into space and the average distance of the moon only 236,000 miles. h± this distance the earth's shadow is :pore than 3,000 mhos wade, the moon is only 2,160 miles wide. The moon orbits at about a mile in two seconds and the trip through the earth's shadow tapes a long time. When things aro just right a total lunar eclipse may last as long as an hour and forty minutes.
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