How to See This Month’s Stunning ‘Blood Moon,’ the First Total Lunar Eclipse Since 2022

On the night between March 13 and 14, skywatchers in North and South America—as well as parts of Europe, Africa and Oceania—who either stay up extremely late or wake up extremely early will be rewarded with a total lunar eclipse. Also called a “blood moon” for its red hue, this celestial event will be the first total lunar eclipse since 2022.

People in North and South America will have the best view of the event, which will take place between 11:57 p.m. and 6 a.m. Eastern time. The most striking part of the eclipse—or totality, when the moon is completely red—will happen between 2:26 and 3:31 a.m. Eastern time. While viewers need special glasses to observe solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are safe to view with the naked eye.

A lunar eclipse takes place when the moon, Earth and sun align in a way that makes Earth cast a shadow over its natural satellite. However, even during totality, when the moon is completely in Earth’s shadow, our planet doesn’t entirely block the sun’s light. Red wavelengths still manage to filter through our atmosphere and reach the moon, hence the event’s dramatic nickname.

It’s the same phenomenon that gives sunrises and sunsets their gorgeous colors. When the sun is along the horizon, its light has to cross a greater amount of atmosphere than when it lies directly overhead. This leads more blue wavelengths of light to get scattered away, meaning only the reddish parts of the light spectrum reach us.

During a total lunar eclipse, “it’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the moon,” according to NASA. And just as the weather can make or break a sunset, Earth’s changing atmosphere also determines how the filtered light will reflect on the moon.

“Dust and clouds can affect the ultimate color of the moon during this event, which means that each total lunar eclipse ends up being somewhat unique and ultimately ‘reflective’ of the state of our own planet’s weather,” Eric Edelman, planetarium director at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, tells Mashable’s Mark Kaufman.

Another factor that influences the moon’s color during a lunar eclipse is how deeply the moon crosses into Earth’s shadow. In a total eclipse, the moon passes through Earth’s umbra, the darkest part of our planet’s shadow. The closer the moon is to the center of the umbra, the darker it will be. In the very early hours of March 14, the moon will cross different parts of Earth’s shadow and thus display a range of rusty hues.

“That’s one of the cool things about this eclipse,” Bennett Maruca, an astronomer at the University of Delaware, tells Mashable. “You see the color gradient.”

March 2025 Total Lunar Eclipse: Shadow View (UTC).mp4

What does a lunar eclipse look like from the moon? When a lunar eclipse occurs on Earth, it’s a solar eclipse on the moon—since, from the moon’s perspective, Earth covers the sun. The Earth doesn’t completely block the sun’s rays, though, and the ones that manage to filter through its atmosphere form a bright ring around the planet. In 1967, NASA’s Surveyor 3 was the first spacecraft to capture a photograph of such an eclipse from the perspective of the moon.

Now, we might have a chance to repeat that observation. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander touched down on the moon early Sunday morning. By the time of the lunar eclipse, another lander built by Intuitive Machines might have also reached the moon’s soil. Blue Ghost is intended to take pictures during the lunar eclipse (a solar eclipse, from its perspective), which will certainly offer a spectacular view next week.