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For the first time in more than two years, a total lunar eclipse will shine across the night sky, allowing stargazers to see a glowing red “blood moon.”

The blood moon will begin Thursday night, around 11:30 p.m., and will last for 60-90 minutes into the early hours of Friday.

“You will notice the moon will change color to a nice sunset-y orange color, and that will max out around two minutes to midnight on Thursday,” Guy Worthey, Associate Professor of Physics at Washington State University (WSU), said on “The Jason Rantz Show.”

Worthey described a lunar eclipse as a specific alignment where the sun, the Earth, and the moon are lined up in that order.

“So the Earth’s shadow falls on the side of the moon, and that’s why the moon gets dim and red,” Worthey said.

The last total lunar eclipse took place on Nov. 8, 2022, and the next one that will be visible in the U.S. won’t appear until 2026. Lunar eclipses are perfectly safe to view, requiring zero protective eyewear equipment.

“And then, outside of that, you’ll see a partial eclipse,” Worthey added. “You’ll see the curve of the earth in shadow cross the disk of the moon, and that’s really interesting too because the shadow is Earth-sized, so it’s bigger than the moon.”

Listen to the full conversation here:

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