
Our Moon is about to put on a show: its first total lunar eclipse of the year, and this time it will be a "blood moon."
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth blocks the sun, casting a shadow on the moon. While that should thrust the big gray, 4.53 billion-year-old orb into darkness, the Moon can instead appear red. According to NASA, some light from the sun does filter through Earth's atmosphere and cast orange-hued light on the Moon. Depending on how deep the orange is, some people think it appears almost red.