Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Curtain rising tonight on total lunar eclipse

Blood Moon Eclipse

Silvia Izquierdo / AP

This Friday, July 27, 2018 file photo shows a blood moon lunar eclipse from the Arpoador beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The celestial curtain will be rising soon on a lunar extravaganza.

Sunday night, the Earth will slide directly between the moon and the sun, creating a total lunar eclipse. There won't be another until 2021.

It will also be the year's first supermoon, when a full moon appears a little bigger and brighter thanks to its slightly closer position.

The entire eclipse will exceed three hours. Totality — when the moon's completely bathed in Earth's shadow — will last an hour. Expect the eclipsed, or blood moon, to turn red from sunlight scattering off Earth's atmosphere.

Everyone everywhere can catch the supermoon, weather permitting. But the entire eclipse will be visible only in North and South America, and across the Atlantic to western and northern Europe.