Stargazers are in for a treat as the night sky will take on an unusual hue in the early hours of March 14th, as 2025 experiences its first total lunar eclipse.
People living in North and South America, parts of Western Europe and Africa, as well as East Asia and the Pacific, will have the opportunity to view the first full lunar eclipse of 2025 on Friday, March 14th.
President of the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, Isa Mohammed, shared a social media post about the event.
“The eclipse will begin at about 1am, just after midnight. The moon will be totally enveloped in the Earth’s shadow by about 2:30am, and will remain that way until about 3:30am, and by 5am the eclipse will be over.”
There are two types of eclipses: lunar and solar. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth moves between the moon and the sun. In a solar eclipse, the moon moves between the Earth and the sun.
“This eclipse will be visible from anywhere in Trinidad and Tobago. You go outside, you look up, the moon will be a little bit to the West and it should be fairly easy to see assuming that the weather is good and the sky is clear and there’s no clouds. It should be nice. When the moon is covered it should take on a reddish glow. It is because of the light passing through the Earth’s atmosphere, all the blue gets scattered out and the red light goes through and the moon is lit up in this beautiful crimson colour and that gives the eclipse its sort of nickname as a blood moon.”
The last occurrence of a blood moon was on November 8th, 2022 while the next event is expected on September 7th to 8th, 2025.