This will be the first total lunar eclipse in nearly two-and-a-half years.

The red color comes from the light of all the sunrises and sunsets happening across Earth.

That’s because, even though the Earth is casting its shadow on the moon, the sun is still passing through Earth’s atmosphere along the edge of that shadow. Those are all the regions where day is transitioning into night, and vice versa.

The atmosphere bends the sunlight toward the moon. Blue light gets scattered in the atmosphere, which is why the sky is blue. Only the red portion of the light spectrum cuts through to reach the lunar surface.

“It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the moon,” NASA wrote in a blog post.

When and how to see the blood moon

Depending on what time zone you’re in, the eclipse will occur the evening of March 13th or very early on the morning of March 14th.

The Earth’s shadow will begin to creep over the moon, creating a partial lunar eclipse, at 1:09 a.m. ET.

To the naked eye, according to NASA, “it looks like a bite is being taken out of the lunar disk.”