Blood Moon: Total lunar eclipse enthrals skywatchers

From Ladakh to Tamil Nadu, skywatchers turned their gaze towards the moon Sunday night, September7,2025 to witness a rare 'Blood Moon' or the total lunar eclipse. The earth's shadow started covering the lunar disc at 9:57 pm as the moon played hide and seek in the cloudy skies with monsoon rains lashing parts of the country. The earth's shadow completely covered the moon at 11:01 pm, turning it coppery red, putting up a rare display of 'Blood Moon'.When the Sun, Earth and Moon line up, the shadow cast by the planet on its satellite makes it appear an eerie, deep red colour that has astounded humans for millennia. According to NASA, lunar eclipses occur at the full moon phase. The Moon appears red during lunar eclipses because the only sunlight reaching it is "reflected and scattered through the Earth's atmosphere", Ryan Milligan, an astrophysicist at Northern Ireland's Queen's University Belfast told AFP.Blue wavelengths of light are shorter than red ones, so are more easily dispersed as they travel throu