Thursday, March 13, 2025 12:38AM
Heads up, literally! The “blood moon” total lunar eclipse will awe stargazers this week.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Heads up, literally! The total lunar eclipse will awe stargazers this week.
The total lunar eclipse featuring a “blood worm moon” will appear in the night sky on the evening of March 13 and into the early morning of March 14.
It will also be the first lunar eclipse in nearly three years that will be visible across the entire U.S. Another lunar eclipse will be visible in the U.S. in March 2026 but only visible from part of the country, including Los Angeles.
A total lunar eclipse happens when the moon is full and when it perfectly aligns with the Earth and sun.
How to watch from Southern California
According to the Griffith Observatory, the eclipse should be visible to the unaided eye from anywhere in Southern California if skies are clear.
It’s safe to view a lunar eclipse without any eye protection, and you don’t need a telescope to see it, observatory officials said, though telescopes or binoculars may enhance the view. All you need to do is just go outside and look up to the southeast.
Best times to watch from Southern California
The Griffith Observatory will be hosting an online broadcast of the eclipse and provided the following timeline for the sequence of events. All times are in PST.
6:44 p.m. – Moonrise8:50 p.m. – Online broadcast begins8:57 p.m. – Penumbral eclipse begins10:09 p.m. – Umbral eclipse begins11:26 p.m. – Total eclipse begins11:59 p.m. – Greatest Eclipse12:31 a.m. -Total eclipse ends1:48 a.m. – Umbral eclipse ends3:00 a.m. – Penumbral eclipse ends
3:05 a.m. – Online broadcast ends
What is a total lunar eclipse?
There are three types of lunar eclipses: a penumbral, partial, and total lunar eclipse.
Penumbral lunar eclipses are not very noticeable and occur when the moon passes through the Earth’s penumbra, or the “faint outer part of its shadow,” according to NASA.
With partial lunar eclipses, part of the moon might look like it’s missing, according to Dr. Angela Speck, a professor of astrophysics and department chair for physics and astronomy at The University of Texas at San Antonio
“You’ve got a nice, crescent C-shape,” said Speck. “This looks more like something took a bite out of [the moon].”
When it comes to a total lunar eclipse, the visibility of the moon shifts even more.
“A total lunar eclipse is when the moon gets between the Earth and the sun and it does so in such a way that it blocks nearly all the light from the sun,” Speck explained. “It’s a little bit weird because actually, we do get some light that gets to the moon but basically, a full moon gets completely blocked out.”
Why does this lunar eclipse involve a “blood moon”?
Speck likens the “blood moon” appearance to that of the rock band Pink Floyd’s famous 1973 “Dark Side of the Moon” album cover.
“You’ve got this light. It hits the prism and out the other side, comes the rainbow. And so that light is bent by going through the glass. The same thing happens with the light going through the Earth’s atmosphere,” Speck said. “As the light comes past the Earth, it’s going through the atmosphere at those edges but it’s getting bent, just like it does on that album cover. It’s getting bent and the red light hits the moon.”
Another way to think of the “blood moon,” according to Speck, is to think of all the red light from sunrises and sunsets becoming visible at the same time.
“One of the nicest ways I’ve heard of it expressed that I think is really cool, is that because of where it’s happening the sunlight is going through the edge of the atmosphere on either side of the Earth, that’s where sunrise and sunset are happening,” said Speck. “You are seeing the light of every sunrise and every sunset on the planet reflected off the moon.”
It is also sometimes called the “blood worm moon,” because it’s thought to be when earthworms often emerge from the thawing ground.
Good Morning America contributed to this report.
