As the full moon started to set over North America in the early hours of March 3, it briefly plunged into the darkest part of Earth’s shadow — resulting in the last total lunar eclipse visible to the U.S. until 2029.
If you missed the early morning spectacle, you can still watch the whole thing unfold via live stream recordings, or enjoy some of the first images of the event below.
Lasting about 5 hours and 39 minutes total, the lunar eclipse began late at night for most skywatchers in North America, with the spectacular “totality” phase — the roughly 1-hour period where the moon drifts through the center of Earth’s dark umbral shadow — lasting about an hour.
Viewers on the East Coast had a slim chance to see totality from roughly 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. EST, just as the moon set below the horizon. Those living in CST and PST timezones had a better shot at seeing the moon turn red in the early morning hours (weather and cloud cover permitting).
Skywatchers in Australia, New Zealand, and eastern Asia also had auspicious views, with up to 3 billion people around the world at least getting to see part of the eclipse, according to Live Science’s sister site Space.com.
Total lunar eclipses are also known as “blood moons,” due to the reddish hue the moon takes when it slips into Earth’s umbra.
This is due to an effect known as Rayleigh scattering, in which different wavelengths of sunlight are selectively filtered through Earth’s atmosphere before hitting the surface of the moon. Shorter, bluer wavelengths are absorbed by the atmosphere while longer, redder ones pass through, turning our moon bloody. (If you think the effect looks cool from Earth, wait until you see what it looks like on the moon.)
Eclipses always come in pairs, with each lunar eclipse falling two weeks before or after a solar eclipse. This year, a lucky few humans (and lots of penguins) had a chance to see a “ring of fire” solar eclipse over Antarctica two weeks ago, on Feb. 17. Here’s what it looked like from the French/Italian Concordia research station in Antarctica.
The next total lunar eclipse visible over North America is coming June 26, 2029.
