It might not be as dramatic as a complete photo voltaic eclipse, however there’s one thing equally epic about watching Earth’s shadow step by step engulfing and coloring the moon throughout a complete lunar eclipse. The subsequent whole lunar eclipse — colloquially referred to as a “blood moon” — will happen on Sept. 7-8, 2025, but it surely will not be one other 177 days till the phenomenon is seen from components of North America, on March 2-3, 2026.
An eclipse of the moon is a world occasion, occurring at a particular time, and solely these on the night time aspect of Earth see it. On Sept. 7-8, North America will not be on the night time aspect, with prime visibility restricted to Africa, India, China and Australia. Western Europe will get a glimpse of the occasion at moonrise, however largely misses out on the occasion, too. That is a disgrace as a result of the Sept.7-8 whole lunar eclipse will see the lunar floor flip reddish for 82 minutes, simply because it did on March 13-14, 2025, when moongazers in North America had been in prime place for some spectacular pictures.
Nonetheless, precisely one lunar yr — 354 days (12 orbits of the moon round Earth) — later, one other whole lunar eclipse shall be seen from North America. The subsequent blood moon seen from North America shall be in a single day on March 2-3, 2026, when the lunar floor will flip reddish for 58 minutes. It will likely be seen from North America, Australia and East Asia, although the epicenter would be the Pacific Ocean.
It is a case of the farther west you’re in North America, the higher view you may get. The truth is, skywatchers in New York will see solely a brief totality on the moonset on March 3. Even within the Midwest, totality takes place near the moonset, with solely these west of Kansas seeing totality greater within the sky. That is vital as a result of the moon tends to glow orange when it is near the horizon anyway, so the redness of totality loses its influence when it happens near the horizon.
Though the West Coast — California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska within the U.S., and British Columbia in Canada — will get to see all levels of the eclipse excessive within the sky, arguably the perfect locations shall be these with reliably clear skies. In March, your finest likelihood is the desert southwest (the southern areas of California, Arizona and New Mexico) and Hawaii, in keeping with knowledge from Time and Date.
The March 2-3, 2026 whole lunar eclipse is the third of three in a row inside one lunar yr. Whole lunar eclipses — which all the time happen throughout a full moon — usually arrive in triads, accompanied by no less than one photo voltaic eclipse two weeks earlier than and/or after. On this case, it is preceded by an annular photo voltaic eclipse attributable to a brand new moon on Feb. 17, 2026, throughout which 96% of the solar’s disk shall be blocked by the moon for as much as 2 minutes 20 seconds — however solely as seen from Antarctica.
