pWotD Episode 3227: March 2026 lunar eclipse

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With 202,721 views on Tuesday, 3 March 2026 our article of the day is March 2026 lunar eclipse.

A total lunar eclipse occurred at the Moon’s descending node of orbit on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, with an umbral magnitude of 1.1507. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow, causing the Moon to be darkened. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon's near side entirely passes into the Earth's umbral shadow. Unlike a solar eclipse, which can only be viewed from a relatively small area of the world, a lunar eclipse may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of Earth. A total lunar eclipse can last up to nearly two hours, while a total solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes at any given place, because the Moon's shadow is smaller. The Moon's apparent diameter was near the average, as it occured 6.7 days after perigee (on February 24, 2026, at 18:15 UTC) and 6.9 days before apogee (on March 10, 2026, at 09:45 UTC).

This lunar eclipse was the third of an almost tetrad, with the others being on March 14, 2025 (total); September 8, 2025 (total); and August 28, 2026 (partial).

During the eclipse, the Moon occulted NGC 3423 over North America. Deep-sky objects are rarely occulted during a total eclipse from any given spot on Earth.

This eclipse fell on the Lantern Festival, the first since February 11, 2017.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 18:08 UTC on Thursday, 5 March 2026.

For the full current version of the article, see March 2026 lunar eclipse on Wikipedia.

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