A dark red shadow crept across the moon Saturday during the first total lunar eclipse in nearly three years, thrilling stargazers and astronomers around the world.
Lunar eclipses occur when Earth passes between the sun and the moon, an uncommon event because the moon spends most of its time either above or below the plane of Earth's orbit.
Sunlight still reaches the moon during total eclipses, but it is refracted through Earth's atmosphere, bathing the moon in an eerie reddish light.
Residents of east Asia saw the eclipse cut short by moonset, while those in the eastern parts of North and South America had the moon already partially or totally eclipsed by the time it rose over the horizon in the evening.
While eastern Australia, Alaska and New Zealand missed Saturday's show, they will have front-row seats to the next total lunar eclipse, on August 28.
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