On the night of September 7 into the 8th, the Moon will shift into a bizarre, unnatural red. A total lunar eclipse—the longest since 2022—will take over the sky for 82 straight minutes of full eclipse, with over five hours of visible changes for much of the world.
Roughly 6.2 billion people will be able to watch the totality from beginning to end. The rest will catch at least part of it, unless they’re in North or South America, where daylight blocks the view. If you’re in Australia, Asia, Europe, or Africa, all you need to do is step outside and look up.
This kind of eclipse happens when the Earth passes directly between the Sun and the Moon, casting a full shadow. Most of the Sun’s light is blocked. The red wavelengths, which travel farther through Earth’s atmosphere, bend toward the Moon and light it up from the edge. It’s the same mechanism behind red skies at sunset, only reversed, and much stranger to look at under total darkness.
The Moon Will Turn Deep Red for 82 Minutes This Month—Here’s Who Will See It
The total eclipse starts at 17:30 GMT and ends at 18:52 GMT. From start to finish, the full thing runs from 15:28 to 20:55 GMT. If you don’t speak in GMT, check Timeanddate.com for local conversions or use one of the many apps that alert you when sky events are happening in real time.
You won’t need binoculars or a telescope. Just look up. For nearly an hour and a half, the Moon will look visibly…off—dull, color-shifted, and dimmed in a way that doesn’t seem real. It’s the kind of thing people used to see as a warning. Now it’s just one of the universe’s stunning sights that make us question our existence.
Lunar eclipses are part of a repeating pattern. Whenever the Earth lines up this precisely with the Sun and Moon, a solar eclipse follows a few weeks later. This time, a partial solar eclipse will show up on September 21, mostly visible in parts of the South Pacific, New Zealand, and Antarctica.
You don’t have to believe in signs to admit the Moon turning red for 82 minutes is worth looking at.
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