Blood moon: what it is and when the next one is
A blood moon is the nickname for a total lunar eclipse, when the Moon turns coppery inside the Earth’s shadow. See the dates of the next ones.
Blood moon is not an astronomical term: it is the nickname given to a total lunar eclipse. The Moon does not go dark inside the Earth’s shadow because our atmosphere bends red sunlight into it — the same physics that makes a sunset orange. The more dust and cloud there is around the Earth’s limb, the darker and redder the eclipse looks. Any total lunar eclipse is safe to watch with the naked eye, with no filter at all, from the whole night side of the Earth.
Next lunar eclipse
| Date | Greatest eclipse at (UTC) | Magnitude | Length | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03 Mar 2026 | Total | 11:34 | 1.151 | 58min | Asia, Oceania, Pacific Ocean, North America, South America |
| 31 Dec 2028 | Total | 16:52 | 1.246 | 1h 11min | Europe, North Africa, Southern Africa, Asia, Oceania, Pacific Ocean |
| 26 Jun 2029 | Total | 03:22 | 1.844 | 1h 42min | North America, South America, Europe, North Africa, Middle East |
| 20 Dec 2029 | Total | 22:42 | 1.117 | 54min | North America, South America, Europe, North Africa, Asia |
See also
How these times are calculated
Eclipse dates, times, magnitudes and durations come from the NASA/GSFC Five Millennium Catalog by Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus. NASA publishes the instants in Dynamical Time; here they appear in UTC, with ΔT already subtracted. For the exact path of totality, see NASA’s own page.
- Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA's GSFC — eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov