March 3 'blood moon' total lunar eclipse dazzles millions around the world (photos)

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As the full moon began to set over North America early on March 3, it briefly dipped into the darkest part of Earth’s shadow—resulting in the last total lunar eclipse visible to the United States until 2029.

If you missed the early morning performance, you still can watch it all unfold via live stream recordingor enjoy some of the first photos of the event below.

Photographer Frederic J. Brown captured the blood moon in partial shadow toward the tail end of the eclipse, which lasted about an hour — Photographer Frederic J. Brown of Los Angeles, California captured the blood moon in partial shadow toward the tail end of the eclipse, which lasted about an hour. (Image credit: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

The lunar eclipse, which lasted about 5 hours and 39 minutes in total, began late in the evening for most skywatchers in North America, with the spectacular “totality phase” — the roughly 1-hour period during which the moon drifts through the center of Earth’s dark umbral shadow — lasting about an hour.

Viewers on the East Coast had a small chance to see totality from about 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. EST, just as the moon was setting below the horizon. Those living in the CST and PST time zones had a better chance of seeing the moon turn red in the early morning hours (weather and cloud cover permitting).

The eclipse over Mexico City — The ‘blood moon’ shines behind the Angel of Independence monument in Mexico City on March 3. (Image credit: Daniel Cardenas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Skywatchers in Australia, New Zealand and East Asia also had promising prospects, with up to 3 billion people around the world seeing at least part of the eclipse, according to Live Science’s sister site Space.com.

The 'Blood Moon' rises over the skyline of Manila, Philippines on Tuesday morning. — In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, photographer Ted Aljibe snapped the blood moon rising over the city. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth travels between the moon and the sun, meaning it is the opposite of a solar eclipse. (Image credit: Photo by Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images)

Total lunar eclipses are also known as “blood moons”, because of reddish hue the moon takes when it slips into the earth’s umbra.

This is due to an effect known as Rayleigh scattering, where different wavelengths of sunlight are selectively filtered through the Earth’s atmosphere before hitting the Moon’s surface. Shorter, bluer wavelengths are absorbed by the atmosphere while longer, redder ones pass through, turning our moon into blood. (If you think the effect looks cool from Earth, wait until you see what it looks like on the moon.)

A multiple exposure image of the 'blood moon' over Golaghat in Assam, India. — A multiple exposure image of the blood moon taken by photographer Biju Boro over Golaghat, India. A lunar eclipse like this only occurs when the moon is perfectly aligned behind our planet, relative to the sun. When the alignment is slightly off, and the sun’s light can still hit some of the moon directly, it is a partial eclipse. (Image credit: Biju Boro/AFP via Getty Images)

Eclipses always come in pairs, with each lunar eclipse falling two weeks before or after a solar eclipse. This year, a few lucky people (and many penguins) had the chance to see one “ring of fire” solar eclipse over Antarctica two weeks ago, February 17. This is how it looked from the French/Italian research station Concordia in Antarctica.