The moon glowed red on Sunday night and the early hours of Monday, after a total lunar eclipse that saw the sun, Earth and moon line up in a straight line in the night sky.
During a full lunar eclipse, the moon passes through the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow — the umbra. When the moon is within the umbra it gets a reddish hue because blue and green light get more easily scattered by dust particles in the atmosphere and orange and red colors remain more visible, according to NASA. Lunar eclipses are sometimes called blood moons because of this phenomenon. People in South America and in the eastern part of North America were expected to get the best view of the lunar eclipse, said Noah Petro, chief of NASA’s Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Lab, before the eclipse. The total lunar eclipse was visible in much of Africa, Europe and South America and most of North America. Stargazers around the world turned out to witness and capture the lunar event in images. While the eclipse peaks for only a short amount of time, Petro said the moon would be bathed in coppery tones throughout the night, making it a particularly interesting celestial phenomenon to watch.
