A rare blood moon lunar eclipse — which hasn’t happened in the U.S. since 2022 — was visible for skywatchers across most of North and South America, as well as the west side of Africa and Europe, the eastern parts of Australia and Russia and northern Japan.

In the Americas alone more than one billion people in 35 countries could bear witness to the total lunar eclipse.

The appropriately named "blood moon" will take on a pronounced reddish hue when the eclipse begins to emerge across the United States Thursday night.