It’s been two years since the Americas had a total lunar eclipse, and we’re making up for it this week. The ENTIRETY of North and South America will be able to see the totally eclipsed “Blood Moon” (The Blood WORM Moon!) at some point overnight between Thursday night and Friday morning. Peak totality will be late on the 13th for those on the west coast and Alaska, and early morning on the 14th for those in the east.

Though everybody in the Americas will theoretically be able to see totality, those in extreme eastern portions of South America will see the Moon set while still largely eclipsed. In western Alaska and the Aleutians, the moon will rise already partially obscured by the Earth’s penumbra. Weather permitting, however, full totality should be visible for everyone, and will last about an hour.

To see the specific timing of the eclipse at your location, use this handy computer provided by the US Naval Observatory. I found that at my location on the east coast, totality will occur between 2:25am and 3:31am. I DID note that the computer defaults to STANDARD time, using a pre-loaded time offset for your location from Greenwich Mean Time, or UTC. If you want to adjust for Daylight Savings Time, make sure you lower the offset by one hour (i.e., in moving the clocks forward last week, we moved our time one hour closer to UTC).

At totality, the eclipsed moon will turn a deep red. This is evidence that the Earth has an atmosphere. (For other evidence, go outside and take a breath.) The red light results from sunlight refracting through the atmosphere, all around the Earth, and illuminating the moon with (no kidding) the combined light of every sunset on Earth, simultaneously. If you were standing on the Moon during one of these eclipses (no atmosphere, don’t breathe!), you’d see the dark circle of Earth, blocking the sun, but it would be surrounded by a ring of red sunset. Pretty cool!

Because lunar eclipses happen only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are directly aligned, it can ONLY happen during a full moon – and this one happens to be the Worm Moon. This moniker, attributed to Native Americans, describes the final full moon of winter, when the worms are starting to move through warming ground. Spring is on the way.

Because they are aligned NOW, the Earth, Sun and Moon are also going to be pretty much aligned in two weeks when the Moon has moved between the Earth and Sun – and yep, you guessed it, parts of Earth will see a partial Solar Eclipse on the 29th. More to come on that – but now you know why Lunar and Solar eclipses tend to happen in pairs.

So, I hope you’ll be able to get out and see the eclipse this week, even if it’s late! Enjoy the Blood Worm Moon, and get some pictures.

Get Out There!