A rare ‘Blood Moon’ will be visible Thursday night and millions throughout the US will have a good chance of seeing it clearly.
This is the first total lunar eclipse since 2022, an event that occurs when the moon slips into Earth’s shadow and gives our celestial neighbor a dark reddish hue.
Unlike a solar eclipse, these events are completely safe to watch with the naked eye and also last for hours.
Several states will have some of the best opportunities to see the moon as it is completely engulfed by Earth’s shadow.
Out east, viewers in Florida, the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, and parts of western Pennsylvania are predicted to have ‘good’ conditions for seeing the moon tonight.
Moving west, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of Georgia and Illinois should also be able get some great pictures of 2025’s first Blood Moon.
Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and small parts of Colorado and New Mexico are also expected to be prime viewing locations for the total lunar eclipse, according to AccuWeather.
Unfortunately, with a major storm moving in heading into the weekend, large portions of the West Coast, Rocky Mountains, and Northern Plains will likely have a poor and cloudy view of the Blood Moon Thursday night into Friday morning.
Several states are expected to have good conditions for viewing the total lunar eclipse Thursday night into Friday morning and most of the US will have at least a ‘fair’ chance of seeing the ‘Blood Moon’
A ‘Blood Moon’ describes the reddish color people see when they view the moon during a total lunar eclipse, when the moon is completely engulfed by the Earth’s shadow
For those that can get a great look at the moon tonight, the stargazing fun officially begins at 11.57 pm ET – when the moon starts to slowly move behind Earth and out of the sun’s light.
However, the real show takes place between 02.26 and 03.31 am ET, when the lunar eclipse reaches ‘totality.’
Totality describes the point when the moon falls completely inside the Earth’s shadow, also called the umbra.
That’s also when the moon will appear to turn from its typical grayish color to a deep red. According to NASA, the Blood Moon phase known as the ‘greatest eclipse’ – when the moon is its reddest – will be visible at 2.59 ET early Friday morning.
For anyone still up after the moon reaches totality, the NASA team said you’ll still be able to see a partial lunar eclipse at 4.10 am ET, when the moon comes halfway out from behind Earth’s shadow and is still half red from our viewpoint.
As for why the moon looks red instead of just turning black in our planet’s shadow, there’s some interesting science which explains this.
Even though Earth is in the way, some sunlight still sneaks around the edges of our planet. The Earth’s atmosphere then acts like a camera filter.
The process is called Rayleigh scattering and it bends the sunlight and scatters out the blue light, leaving mostly the red light to keep going. That red light then hits the moon, giving it that eerie ‘Blood Moon’ glow.
At 2:26 am ET, the moon will move completely inside the Earth’s umbra (shadow), creating the deepest red color of the Blood Moon
Commenting on this phenomenon, Professor Don Pollacco from the University of Warwick Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, said: ‘The moon, like all planets, gives out no light of its own, but instead shines by reflecting sunlight.’
‘As the sunlight travels through our atmosphere on its way to the Moon the redder wavelengths pass through relatively unhindered while the bluer wavelengths are scattered (that’s why the sky is blue) by dust suspended in the earth’s atmosphere,’ Prof. Pollacco continued.
‘The red light reaches the moon and is then reflected back to us. So, the redness of the moon actually tells us about the conditions in our atmosphere.’
Stargazers in Florida, Ohio, and several other states are expected to have the best chance of viewing the Blood Moon Thursday night into Friday morning
According to Space.com, every phase of Thursday night’s eclipse will be visible across all 50 states (including Alaska and Hawaii). However, as AccuWeather pointed out, your results may vary depending on the weather.
If you miss this month’s Blood Moon, you’ll have another chance later in 2025. Thursday’s event is actually the first of three total lunar eclipses between now and 2026.
The next Blood Moon will appear on September 7, 2025, but it will only be visible in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
That eclipse will be followed by another one a year from now on March 3, 2026 and it will be visible in the US.
If you miss 2026’s Blood Moon, you’ll be out of luck for a while. The next total lunar eclipse that can be seen in the US won’t come around until June 26, 2029.
