Is it true that a lunar eclipse happen every 400 years?

Answer 1

No. There are generally two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses each year. This year, 2013, has two solar eclipses and three lunar eclipses.

However, the area of the Earth affected during a solar eclipse is pretty small, so there are long periods between two eclipses in the same location. But it isn't a uniform period. For example, there will be total eclipses of the Sun twice in 7 years, in 2017 and 2024, in an area around Carbondale, Illinois. For other locations, there haven't been any total solar eclipses in a couple of hundred years.

You can see the 5,000 year catalog of all eclipses between 2000 BCE and 3000 AD on the NASA Eclipse web page at the link below.

Answer 2

It's certainly true to say that if there was a lunar eclipse this year, then there's

a very good chance that there'll be one 400 years from now.

You can be quite sure of that, because there are between 1 and 4 of them every year.

Between the years 1901 and 2000, there were 229 lunar eclipses, for an average

of 2.29 of them each year.

Answer 3

No, lunar eclipses occur more frequently than that. On average, there are about 2 to 4 lunar eclipses every year. Lunar eclipses happen when the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon, casting a shadow on the Moon.