This eclipse is a long one, with totality lasting 85 minutes, almost an hour and a half! 
The “Blood Moon” is back! The Moon may appear red because Earth’s atmosphere absorbs the other colors while it bends some sunlight toward the moon. This will be the last total lunar eclipse until March 13-14, 2025! This total lunar eclipse is the first one to occur on election day in the United States. This will not happen again until November 8, 2394. Find out more
During a lunar eclipse, Earth gets in the way of the sun’s light hitting the moon. That means that during the night, a full moon fades away as Earth’s shadow covers it up.
The eclipse occurs on Tuesday morning, November 8, 2022, for most people but for those in time zones to the west of PST, the eclipse is Monday night, November 7, 2022.
At least some of the eclipse will be visible from Asia, Australia, North America, parts of northeastern Europe, and South America. This is the second eclipse of the second eclipse season of 2022. There was a partial solar eclipse on October 25, 2022.
Because the last lunar eclipse was so recent (May 15-16, 2022), it may seem like you’ll have a lot of opportunities to see one. NOPE!
The next total lunar eclipse is in 2 years, 4 months, 5 days, on March 13–14, 2025! Even then, it’s location and weather dependent. Take the opportunity to enjoy this sky show!
How can you see it?
No special glasses are needed for a lunar eclipse!! Unlike the Corey Hart song, you don’t need to wear your sunglasses* at night! 😎
If you’re in the viewing areas below, you can go outside, or watch online.
Where can you see it?
A map showing where the November 7-8, 2022 lunar eclipse is visible. Contours mark the edge of the visibility region at eclipse contact times. The map is centered on 168°57’W, the sublunar longitude at mid-eclipse. Image via the NASA SVS
Map of where the total lunar eclipse of November 7-8, 2022 will be visible. Image via Dominic Ford and in-the-sky.org
Why is the moon red?
The moon is red during a total lunar eclipse because of the same effect that creates sunrises and sunsets.
Colors of shorter wavelengths like blue are scattered more by Earth’s atmosphere than the longer wavelengths like red. When the sun is low in the sky during sunrise and sunset the light travels through more atmosphere so more of the blue light is scattered leaving more red light. When Earth blocks the light from the sun during a lunar eclipse the edge of Earth has a glow like a sunrise or a sunset from the scattered light in the atmosphere. This is what gives the shadow on the moon during the total eclipse its reddish tint.
During a lunar eclipse, Earth’s atmosphere scatters sunlight. The blue light from the Sun scatters away, and longer-wavelength red, orange, and yellow light pass through, turning our Moon red. *This image is not to scale. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio
