blood moon, alignment of the planets, 2025 will be rich in cosmic events

At the start of 2025, the sky has some celestial shows in store for us. Between planetary alignments, showers of shooting stars and lunar eclipses, astronomy enthusiasts will have something to rejoice. Discover the cosmic events not to be missed.

Around January 21, 2025, it will be possible to make beautiful observations. “The conditions will be ideal for seeing Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn sharing the sky over a vast panorama from East to South-West. There are also Uranus and Neptune, but these two planets are not bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. The notion of alignment is misleading in the sense that there is no “ranking” of the planets.

On the other hand, all coming from the same proto-planetary disk, they orbit around the Sun in approximately the same plane (called the ecliptic).” This is what the Cité de l’espace website in Toulouse tells us. A phenomenon that can be observed with a little equipment from anywhere in France, provided you have a clear sky without light pollution.

Just before, the Quadrantids, a shower of shooting stars, will offer two peaks on the nights between January 2 and 4. “The Quadrantids can reach a zenith hourly rate of 120 (i.e. 120 shooting stars per hour, but only in the best conditions far from any light pollution).

Above all, the peak only lasts a few hours and it could well occur in broad daylight on the 3rd for Europe.” This time, even without equipment, you will be able to enjoy the show in Lorraine as elsewhere in France.

The best is yet to come, because 2025 will be rich in cosmic events to observe.

March 14 promises us a beautiful spectacle. “You will be able to see the Moon turn red in the early hours of the day“, tells us National Geographic. “This “Blood Moon” effect occurs when the moon is full and the Sun, Earth, and Moon are perfectly aligned so that our planet’s shadow envelops the lunar disk in the sky. The event will be fully visible from the Americas and Europe.

Contact with the penumbra will begin at 3:57 a.m., when the shadow cast by the Earth begins to cover the Moon. The most ravishing part of the spectacle is the total eclipse, which will last from 6:26 a.m. to 7:31 a.m., when the entire lunar disk will be in Earth’s shadow, with shades ranging from orange to red copper.“

For those who missed the March blood moon, there will be that of September 7 with the added bonus of a lunar eclipse. “The Earth’s shadow will begin to envelop the Moon at 6:27 p.m. Paris time, while the total eclipse will last from 7:30 p.m. to 8:51 p.m. During the total phase of the eclipse, light from the Sun passes through the Earth’s particle-laden atmosphere, is bent toward the red wavelengths of the light spectrum and then projected onto the surface of the Moon, giving it that orange-red hue.”

As in 2024, 2025 could offer some nice surprises with the possibility of observing the Northern Lights in France. We remain in the 11-year cycle of the Sun. Every 11 years, sunspots form and cause ejections. Milan Maksimovic, astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory, contributes to a mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) which sent a “Solar Orbiter” probe in February 2020 to observe the Sun. In particular, he worked on one of the ten instruments on board, the RPW for Radio and Plasma Waves.

A few months ago, he told us: “Every 11 years, on average, there is a peak in solar activity. “Solar Orbiter” will make it possible to study how solar flares are set up and what they produce. A solar storm produces matter, light and energetic particles. For the first time, a probe will approach the Sun with instruments that can make images and measure plasma emissions. We will couple the imaging data with those of the probe.“

Another probe is heading towards our star, NASA’s Parker solar probe, which left in 2018. At the end of 2024, beginning of 2025, it “grazes” the Sun at an incredible distance of 6.1 million kilometers, a record. It represents one of the fastest objects in space history with a speed of 700,000 km/h.

“Stellarium” is a free tool recommended by the Société Lorraine d’Astronomie (SLA) and by the Côtes de Meuse Observatory. And to dream even more, the NASA and ESA sites offer you all the available and reliable information you need.