{"id":1626,"date":"2025-03-14T19:19:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T19:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/14\/why-was-the-moon-shades-of-red-orange-and-yellow-last-night-heres-what-causes-a-blood-moon\/"},"modified":"2025-03-14T19:19:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T19:19:16","slug":"why-was-the-moon-shades-of-red-orange-and-yellow-last-night-heres-what-causes-a-blood-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/14\/why-was-the-moon-shades-of-red-orange-and-yellow-last-night-heres-what-causes-a-blood-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Why was the moon shades of red, orange and yellow last night? Here’s what causes a “Blood Moon.”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Those who glanced up at the sky Thursday night had an opportunity to catch the March 2025 “Blood Moon,”<\/a><\/span> a phenomenon that colors the full moon in shades of red, orange and yellow during a total lunar eclipse.<\/p>\n

This month’s full moon<\/a><\/span>\u00a0was due to pass through the shadow of Earth either late Thursday night or very early Friday morning, depending on the viewer’s time zone. It was visible to people in the Americas and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

Dubbed the “Worm Moon<\/a>” by the Farmer’s Almanac, which has been assigning names to full moons for almost a century, this one is expected to last through Saturday morning, according to NASA<\/a>. The full moon technically rose in its totality early Friday.<\/p>\n

Here’s what to know about the event \u2014 and why the moon showed a new hue when it happened.<\/p>\n

Why was the moon red, orange and yellow?<\/h2>\n

The moon appeared to turn red as Earth passed directly between it and the sun in what’s known as a total lunar eclipse. Their perfect alignment darkens the moon, from the perspective of folks looking up, because our planet’s position blocks most sunlight from reaching it.<\/p>\n

Some light still makes its way to the moon’s surface, but only certain shades of it. The colors that wind up there are longer wavelengths of light \u2014 red, orange, yellow \u2014 which withstood the journey through “a thick slice of Earth’s atmosphere,” NASA said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"lunar-eclipse-1.jpg<\/span>

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An illustration shows the alignment of the sun, moon and Earth during a lunar eclipse. It isn’t drawn to scale.<\/span><\/p>\n

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NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio<\/p>\n

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Shorter wavelengths of the color spectrum, like blue, scatter easily when they hit the atmosphere. That’s why a vast sky can look blue in the middle of the day, when sunlight can shine straight down from overhead. Longer wavelengths materialize on Earth when sunlight hits from more of a perpendicular angle, so its route through our atmosphere can be more extensive. Short wavelengths are essentially filtered out by the atmosphere over such a protracted distance, and only the longer reds, oranges and yellows remain.<\/p>\n

What is a “Blood Moon”?<\/h2>\n

“Blood Moon” is a nickname that refers to the moon’s reddish appearance during a total lunar eclipse.<\/p>\n

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