This Week's Total Lunar Eclipse Will Reveal a ‘Blood Moon’—Here's How to See It
10.03.2025 - 21:09
/ cntraveler.com
This week, on the evening of March 13 and into the morning of March 14, the moon will slide into Earth’s shadow, creating a wondrous and graceful event: a total lunar eclipse. The whole show, over three hours long, will be visible across almost the entirety of North America, Central America, and most of South America. From western Africa the moon will set while still eclipsed, and in extreme eastern Russia the moon will rise already in eclipse.
One great aspect of a lunar eclipse is that you don’t need a telescope or binoculars to see it; just your eyes and a clear night sky. You don’t even necessarily need to leave the city to see it, though when fully eclipsed the dark moon might be hard to spot if there is too much light pollution. If you do have astronomical equipment on hand it will certainly enhance your enjoyment, since you’ll get a close-up view of what’s transpiring. In order to best appreciate the cosmic show, it's helpful to understand the fascinating science behind a lunar eclipse (including why the moon appears red, a phenomenon also known as a “blood moon"). Below, we break down exactly what you'll be able to see in the night sky come Thursday evening—all you have to do is look up.
Meet the author: Dr. Phil Plait is an astronomer, author, and science communicator with a PhD in astronomy at the University of Virginia. He has written four books on astronomy and consulted on space TV shows and movies, including the 2016 hit, Arrival. He was also the head science writer for the first season of Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix.
It’s a bit odd to think of Earth having a shadow, since there’s nothing in space for it to be cast upon. However, a shadow is just where an object is blocking a source of light, so if you’re in a spot in space exactly behind Earth with respect to the Sun, the solid body of our planet obstructs our star. You’d be in shadow.
A total lunar eclipse is a relatively rare astronomical event because the moon usually passes above or below Earth’s shadow in the sky due to the tilt of its orbit. But once or twice a year the heavens literally align and the moon moves directly into that region of space.
The Earth is round, so we see it casting a circular shadow on the moon. As the moon orbits Earth, one edge of the moon’s disk appears to darken when it enters Earth’s shadow—we call this the beginning of the partial eclipse—and over a few minutes that spot grows into an arc, a dark circular segment that moves over the lunar landscape. It continues to swallow the moon, which eventually becomes a crescent shape, until, finally, the entirety of the moon is in Earth’s shadow, which we call totality.
Totality can last for well over an hour, depending on how deeply the moon penetrates