Over 7.1 Billion People Will Be Able to See the Next Blood Moon

Total lunar eclipse, or “blood moon,” as seen from Irvine, CA, in 2022. (Photo: Sergei Mutovkin via Wikimedia Commons, CC 2.0)

On September 7, 2025, a striking, red-tinged moon will begin traveling through the night sky. This celestial event will be our second total lunar eclipse of the year, primarily visible in parts of Asia, Australia, the Pacific, and the easternmost slivers of Africa through September 8, 2025. All told, about 4.9 billion people will be able to see the entire eclipse from beginning to end, while 7.1 billion people—or about 87% of the world’s population—will be able to see at least some of the eclipse’s initial phases.

These types of total lunar eclipses occur when the Earth is positioned precisely between the sun and the moon in a straight line. This configuration allows light from the sun to illuminate the moon, but not without passing through the Earth first. While traveling through our atmosphere, this sunlight becomes scattered, filtering out shorter, blue wavelengths rather than longer, red wavelengths. During totality, the moon ends up bathed in a dramatic, reddish hue, earning it the “blood moon” nickname.

Unfortunately, this particular eclipse won’t be visible in North, Central, and South America. That’s because these regions already experienced the blood moon earlier this year, between March 13 and 14. Luckily, lunar eclipses follow a predictable pattern known as the “Saros cycle,” which governs the “periodicity and recurrence” of eclipses and repeats every 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours, according to NASA. Stargazers will have to wait until March 3, 2026, for the next blood moon, whose totality will be observable across the United States except for on the East Coast. The entirety of the eclipse will be visible in Hawaii, Alaska, and western regions of the U.S. and Canada as well.

Next August, a second, partial eclipse will occur in the Americas, while a total solar eclipse will be visible in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia, and a small area of Portugal. To learn more about specific timings in your location, head over to Time and Date, which hosts information about eclipses and other out-of-this-world events.