The 2026 Almost-Blood Moon: A Cosmic Spectacle Worth Staying Up For
By Mia Palacios
On the night of August 27-28, 2026, the moon put on a really amazing show across the world’s night sky. A deep partial lunar eclipse slowly transformed the moon into a reddish-copper color, coming so close to a total eclipse that many people called it an “almost blood moon.”
At its peak, Earth’s shadow covered about 96.3% of the moon’s surface, leaving only a thin, bright sliver of light against the darkened moon. For the people who stayed up to watch, it was one of those moments that made a normal night feel more special.
This eclipse was more than just something that happened for one night. It was part of something astronomers call the “Saros Cycle,” which is a repeating pattern that connects eclipses together. You can think of it like a cosmic family tree. Eclipses in the same Saros series happen about every 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours.
The same alignment that produced this eclipse happened on August 16, 2008, and it will happen again on September 7, 2044. For younger skywatchers, this made the eclipse special because it could have been their first time seeing something like this. If someone missed it, though, they would have to wait almost two decades for another similar one.
Astronomers also have a technical way of describing how much of the moon was covered. They use two different measurements called “obscuration” and “umbral magnitude.”
Obscuration means the percentage of the moon’s surface covered by Earth’s darkest shadow, which was about 96.3%. Umbral magnitude measures how much of the moon’s diameter was covered, and it was also around 93.2%.
In short, both numbers show that the moon came extremely close to being totally eclipsed, but it didn’t quite reach that point.
The eclipse also didn’t just happen all at once. It slowly happened over several hours, which made it different from other things you might see in the sky.
The partial phase started at 10:34 p.m. on August 27, when the first visible part of Earth’s shadow appeared on the moon. It reached her peak at 12:13 a.m. on August 28, and the partial phase ended at 1:51 a.m. If you include the penumbral phases before and after, the whole event lasted around 5 hrs and 38 min.
At first, the bright part of the moon was still too strong for people to really notice the reddish color. But as the bright sliver became smaller, people’s eyes started adjusting to the darkness. And less than an hour later, the coppery-red color of the eclipsed part became much easier to see.
For 13-year-old Carolina Puris, a seventh grader at Mater Lakes Middle School, this eclipse was her first lunar eclipse. She found out about it on Wednesday, August 26, just one day before it happened.
“I almost fell asleep during a test, but it was one hundred percent worth it,” Carolina said.
Carolina also tried taking pictures of the eclipse, but she admitted she “failed miserably.” She joked that she needs a better camera, which seems understandable as taking pictures of the moon can be harder than it looks.
Even though the pictures didn’t turn out good, she was still really excited about what she saw.
She didn’t use any special equipment while watching it. Carolina had seen a solar eclipse back in fourth grade, but this felt different because it was slower and more calm. She called it her “first lunar eclipse,” and you could tell she was genuinely excited about seeing it.
Not everybody got the chance to see the eclipse. Junior Brianna Villa, heard about it from her younger brother. She had seen a lunar eclipse before, which she remembered happening “last school year right before I got on the bus.” She also remembered that it was a blood moon. This time, however, she couldn’t watch it because of how late it was.
“It was too late in the night, and I didn’t want to wake my dad up,” Brianna explained. “I felt a bit disappointed because I was supposed to wake my little brother up to see it since he never saw it,” she said.
Her brother ended up forgetting about the eclipse, but Brianna didn’t. She said that if another eclipse happens this year, she will make sure that he gets to see it.
Carolina and Brianna both had different experiences with the same eclipse. For Carolina, it was a moment of excitement and discovery. She tried to take pictures, and even though they didn’t come out very well, she was happy to just see something she had never seen before.
For Brianna, it was more about sharing the experience with someone else. She wanted her little brother to see something that he hadn’t experienced before.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons why people care so much about events like this. An eclipse is something recurrent happening far away in space, but to people, it is a few-times-in-a-lifetime experience.
People stay up late to see it. They try taking pictures. They call someone outside to look at it with them. Sometimes they wake up their siblings so they don’t miss it. And sometimes, they miss the whole thing and just hope to get another chance.
The next lunar eclipse will be a penumbral eclipse on February 20, 2027. It won’t be nearly as dramatic as the 2026 “almost blood moon,” but it will be visible across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. For people like Brianna and her little brother, it will be another chance to look up at the beautiful night sky’s resplendent moon.
