Bruce Murray Space Image Library

The Moon's orbital tilt

This content is hosted by a third party (vimeo.com), which uses marketing cookies. Please accept marketing cookies to watch this video.

Because the Moon's orbit around the Earth is tilted by about 5 degrees, the Moon does not fall within Earth's shadow every month to create a lunar eclipse. This NASA visualization shows the Moon missing Earth's shadow for several months before finally passing through it, creating a lunar eclipse. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio