Media invited to view supermoon eclipse at Rice University Campus Observatory

MEDIA ADVISORY

Jade Boyd
713-348-6778
jadeboyd@rice.edu

Media invited to view supermoon eclipse at Rice University Campus Observatory
Rice’s Pat Hartigan to give lecture, available for interviews

HOUSTON – (Jan. 15, 2019) – Weather permitting, the Rice University Campus Observatory will host a public viewing of the Jan. 20 total lunar eclipse, and reporters are welcome to cover both the viewing and a lecture before the event by Pat Hartigan, Rice professor of physics and astronomy.

Courtesy of 123rf.com

The eclipse will occur between 9:30 p.m. CST Jan. 20 and 12:50 a.m. CST Jan. 21. The moon will be totally immersed in Earth’s shadow – appearing red, also known as a “blood moon” – between 10:41 p.m. and 11:43 p.m. CST. The lunar eclipse is special because of the convenient time it occurs, its larger-than-normal size — known as a supermoon — and reasonably long total phase, Hartigan said.

The next total lunar eclipse visible from the U.S. will occur on May 26, 2021, but will occur at 5 a.m. and only have 15 minutes of totality. A similar eclipse will occur May 16, 2022, but after that, the next supermoon total eclipse visible in the early evening from the U.S. will not occur until 2050.

The Rice observatory is located on the fourth floor of Brockman Hall for Physics, on the north side of campus. Parking will be available for a limited number of satellite trucks. Because the observatory is on the fourth floor, broadcast media should be prepared to work wirelessly.

Hartigan’s lecture is from 8:30-9 p.m. in Brockman Hall, Room 101.

Media interested in covering the event should contact Jade Boyd, science editor and associate director of news and media relations, at jadeboyd@rice.edu or 713-348-6778.

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Related materials:

Video:

https://youtu.be/lNi5UFpalesb
Video courtesy of NASA.

Hartigan’s websites with lunar eclipse details:

http://sparky.rice.edu/~hartigan/lunar-eclipse.html

http://sparky.rice.edu/~hartigan/supermoon.html

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,962 undergraduates and 3,027 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.