Would you go to the bible and to prophets for advice about when to launch a spacecraft, and in what direction and at what speed to send it to Pluto?
So why expect them to be able to predict the dynamics of our solar system? So far I think the success rate of prophets relying on the bible to predict cosmic events is zero. And those predictions are usually of end of world events.
They don't predict smaller things like the Russian meteorite or the tsunami, or the Nepal earthquake which we could do something to mitigate given a bit of advance warning to prefer. But those are the ones that are likely to happen to us, indeed we are certain to get many more of those, statistically, because they happen every so often somewhere in the world, we are bound to get many more in the next century as in every century. Except that the world now has many more people to be affected by them. With major cities now of millions of people in many areas vulnerable to earthquakes, to take an example.
So meanwhile, there are many real issues that we should be concerned about. And many teams of people working on these issues trying to find solutions. See for instance, on the earthquake threat - there is no risk of California falling into the sea :). But definitely risk of major earthquakes there and in other places. Earthquake experts got it right about Nepal. What about Japan, California and Mexico? [Updated]
Meanwhile on the asteroid threat, teams of astronomers, amateur and professional, are working out the orbits of all the known Near Earth Asteroids, and sensitive telescopes are photographing the sky every night in automatic searches, taking large field photos several times a minute, looking for new faint asteroids. And the B612 foundation plans a space telescope in orbit close to Venus to look outwards and search for the ones hard to see from Earth. Eventually we'll know nearly all down to a few hundred meters diameter, and finally down to tens of meters, probably within a decade or two. And if we find one headed our way (there isn't any predicted to do this for this year at present) - then most likely we have many years, decades, or centuries of warning, and we can find ways to deflect it. Or in the worst case, evacuate the region it is headed for or go into shelters. Or for the smaller ones, keep indoors and away from windows at the moment of impact and evacuate the place it's going to hit.
For details see Robert Walker's answer to What are the chances of Asteroid 2012 TT5 hitting the Earth on September 24, 2015?
As for blood moons, the Moon is always red during eclipses.
You get these every year, often twice a year. You get lots of lunar eclipses, more than solar eclipses, because the Earth casts quite a large shadow and the Moon is comparatively small. And unlike solar eclipses, everyone on the hemisphere of the Earth facing the Moon sees the eclipse, if you go out to look at it at the right time. But it's easy to miss it because it happens at night. Always at full moon and you can look up the predictions to see when the next one is: List of 21st-century lunar eclipses
This is the September eclipse. which will be visible from Western Europe, Western Africa and the Americas
September 2015 lunar eclipse
And this animation shows what to expect:
The colour of the Moon varies, depending on the weather conditions on the Earth, but it is usually red. What you see there is the simultaneous sunset and sunrise as the sun diffracts through the atmosphere in all the places around the rim of the Earth. At the time of eclipse it lines up so that the red light shines on the Moon. Quite poetic really.
It's called a "blood moon" when you have four lunar eclipses within six months. That last happened in 2004, and happens again in 2014-2015. Lunar eclipse#Blood Moon
Space . com article: Four Blood Moons: Total Lunar Eclipse Series Not a Sign of Apocalypse
It's quite poetic - it's the red light from all the sunrises and sunsets all around the world shining on the Moon at that moment. Nothing at all to do with blood. Would be more accurate to call it "sunset and sunrise Moon".
What is a Blood Moon?
This is the light which turns an eclipsed moon red, as seen from the space station - as seen from the Moon the Earth would look black with a very fine red ring all the way around it because of all the light from the sunsets and sunrises - which would make the landscape go red in colour.
And view of Earth in simulated lunar eclipse as seen from the Moon. Of course we don't actually have any photographs yet of the Earth from the Moon during a solar eclipse.
see
Why a totally eclipsed moon looks red | EarthSky.org
So why expect them to be able to predict the dynamics of our solar system? So far I think the success rate of prophets relying on the bible to predict cosmic events is zero. And those predictions are usually of end of world events.
They don't predict smaller things like the Russian meteorite or the tsunami, or the Nepal earthquake which we could do something to mitigate given a bit of advance warning to prefer. But those are the ones that are likely to happen to us, indeed we are certain to get many more of those, statistically, because they happen every so often somewhere in the world, we are bound to get many more in the next century as in every century. Except that the world now has many more people to be affected by them. With major cities now of millions of people in many areas vulnerable to earthquakes, to take an example.
So meanwhile, there are many real issues that we should be concerned about. And many teams of people working on these issues trying to find solutions. See for instance, on the earthquake threat - there is no risk of California falling into the sea :). But definitely risk of major earthquakes there and in other places. Earthquake experts got it right about Nepal. What about Japan, California and Mexico? [Updated]
Meanwhile on the asteroid threat, teams of astronomers, amateur and professional, are working out the orbits of all the known Near Earth Asteroids, and sensitive telescopes are photographing the sky every night in automatic searches, taking large field photos several times a minute, looking for new faint asteroids. And the B612 foundation plans a space telescope in orbit close to Venus to look outwards and search for the ones hard to see from Earth. Eventually we'll know nearly all down to a few hundred meters diameter, and finally down to tens of meters, probably within a decade or two. And if we find one headed our way (there isn't any predicted to do this for this year at present) - then most likely we have many years, decades, or centuries of warning, and we can find ways to deflect it. Or in the worst case, evacuate the region it is headed for or go into shelters. Or for the smaller ones, keep indoors and away from windows at the moment of impact and evacuate the place it's going to hit.
Bob Holmes - one of many amateur astronomers doing follow up observations to work out the orbits of near earth asteroids to find out if any of them are on a course to hit EArth Bob Holmes of the Astronomical Research Institute in Illinois, USA
For details see Robert Walker's answer to What are the chances of Asteroid 2012 TT5 hitting the Earth on September 24, 2015?
As for blood moons, the Moon is always red during eclipses.
You get these every year, often twice a year. You get lots of lunar eclipses, more than solar eclipses, because the Earth casts quite a large shadow and the Moon is comparatively small. And unlike solar eclipses, everyone on the hemisphere of the Earth facing the Moon sees the eclipse, if you go out to look at it at the right time. But it's easy to miss it because it happens at night. Always at full moon and you can look up the predictions to see when the next one is: List of 21st-century lunar eclipses
This is the September eclipse. which will be visible from Western Europe, Western Africa and the Americas
September 2015 lunar eclipse
And this animation shows what to expect:
The colour of the Moon varies, depending on the weather conditions on the Earth, but it is usually red. What you see there is the simultaneous sunset and sunrise as the sun diffracts through the atmosphere in all the places around the rim of the Earth. At the time of eclipse it lines up so that the red light shines on the Moon. Quite poetic really.
It's called a "blood moon" when you have four lunar eclipses within six months. That last happened in 2004, and happens again in 2014-2015. Lunar eclipse#Blood Moon
Space . com article: Four Blood Moons: Total Lunar Eclipse Series Not a Sign of Apocalypse
It's quite poetic - it's the red light from all the sunrises and sunsets all around the world shining on the Moon at that moment. Nothing at all to do with blood. Would be more accurate to call it "sunset and sunrise Moon".
What is a Blood Moon?
This is the light which turns an eclipsed moon red, as seen from the space station - as seen from the Moon the Earth would look black with a very fine red ring all the way around it because of all the light from the sunsets and sunrises - which would make the landscape go red in colour.
And view of Earth in simulated lunar eclipse as seen from the Moon. Of course we don't actually have any photographs yet of the Earth from the Moon during a solar eclipse.
Why a totally eclipsed moon looks red | EarthSky.org
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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