Tucson sky-watchers were able to view a total lunar eclipse early Tuesday morning.
The rare event was also seen over three continents as the Earth passed between the Sun and the Moon, casting a shadow over the lunar surface visible from Earth from 4:00 am to 5:00 am.
Sanlyn Buxner with the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute says sunlight filtered through the Earth's atmosphere turned the moon a reddish orange color, giving it the name "blood moon."
"There's nothing magical going on," she said. "The sunlight starts to scatter, it's filtering and bending, just like in sunsets. So we start to get that red color as the blue light is scattered out the red light gets to the Moon and make it look a little redder."
Buxner says the next time we'll be able to see a "blood moon" lunar eclipse in Arizona will be 2029.
