Total lunar eclipse to be visible from Asia, Africa, Australasia, and Eastern Europe.

A total Lunar Eclipse will occur on Sunday 7 September 2025, starting at 4.27 pm GMT. It will be visible across the entirety of Australia, Indonesia, Asia apart from areas of the Russian Far East, the Indian Ocean, and the eastern half of Africa. In Eastern Europe, much of Central and West Africa, New Zealand, Melanesia, and Micronesia, part of the eclipse will be visible, although in these areas the Moon will either rise part way through the eclipse, or set before it is complete in these areas.

Areas from which the 7 September 2025 Lunar Eclipse will be visible. Dominic Ford/In the Sky.

The Moon produces no light of its own, but 'shines' with reflected light from the Sun. Thus at Full Moon the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth to the Sun, and its illuminated side is turned towards us, but at New Moon the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun, so that its illuminated side is turned away from us.

How the phases of the Moon are caused by the relative positions of the Earth, Sun and Moon. Karl Tate/Space.com.

Lunar eclipses occur when the Moon passes through the Earth's shadow. This can only happen at Full Moon (unlike Solar Eclipses, which happen only when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sum, and therefore only occur at New Moon), but does not happen every Lunar Month as the Sun, Moon and Earth are not in a perfect, unwavering line, but rather both the Earth and the Moon wobble slightly as they orbit their parent bodies, rising above and sinking bellow the plane of the ecliptic (the plane upon which they would all be in line every month). 

Phases of the 7 September 2025. NASA Eclipse Website.

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Images from Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM).

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe has sent back it's first images, following a not-quite-to-plan landing on 19 January 2024. These images show an area of lunar landscape, and are built up by the synthesis of 257 individual low-resolution images from the probe's Multi-Band Camera (MBC). A number of potentially interesting rocks have been identified for future investigations.

A lunar surface scan mosaic image captured by the SLIM-mounted MBC (left) and its enlarged view (right). The grey area on the right of the mosaic lacks data due to the discontinuation of scanning operation. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The SLIM probe landed on the edge of Shioli Crater, a small lunar impact crater that is located within the much larger Cyrillus Crater in the Moon's Southern Hemisphere, on 19 January 2024. However, due to a problem with its engines it landed nose-down, then toppled so that its solar panels face to the west, a sub-optimal position which leave it receiving more sunlight than would be ideal. It was able to deploy one of the two small landers it carried, the Lunar Excursion Vehicle (LEV-1), which carried out a series of operations, including becoming the smallest ever independent probe to communicate directly with the Earth from the Moon (LEV-1 weighs only 2.1 kg, of which 90 g is its communication system), before powering down.

The SLIM landing site is now entering the lunar night, which will last for 14 days, and the probe which, which is reliant on solar power, will power down for this period. However, due to the unplanned nature of its landing orientation, it is not completely clear if it will be able to re-awaken at the end of this period.

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Partial Lunar Eclipse.

A partial Lunar Eclipse will occur on Saturday 28 October 2023, starting slightly after 6.00 pm GMT. The whole eclipse will be visible across all of Europe, most of Africa and Asia, and the entire Indian Ocean, while part of the eclipse will be visible from the remaining areas of Africa, Asia and Australia, as well as parts of the Americas, although in these areas the Moon will either rise part way through the eclipse, or set before it is complete.

Areas from which the 28 October 2023 Lunar Eclipse will be visible. In the white area the full extent of the eclipse will be visible, in the shaded areas it will either begin before the Moon rises or end after the Moon has set, while in the darkest area it will not be visible at all. US Naval Observatory/HM Nautical Almanac Office.

The Moon produces no light of its own, but 'shines' with reflected light from the Sun. Thus, at Full Moon the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth to the Sun, and its illuminated side is turned towards us, but at New Moon the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun, so that its illuminated side is turned away from us.

Lunar eclipses occur when the Moon passes through the Earth's shadow. This can only happen at Full Moon (unlike Solar Eclipses, which happen only when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sum, and therefore only occur at New Moon), but does not happen every Lunar Month as the Sun, Moon and Earth are not in a perfect, unwavering line, but rather both the Earth and the Moon wobble slightly as they orbit their parent bodies, rising above and sinking bellow the plane of the ecliptic (the plane upon which they would all be in line every month).

Because the Moon is passing through a shadow, rather than being blocked from our view, it does not completely disappear during an eclipse like the Sun, but in a total Lunar Eclipse goes through two distinct phases of dimming, the Penumbra, when it is still partially illuminated by the Sun, and the Umbra, when the Earth completely blocks direct sunlight from the Moon. This does not result in complete darkness, as the Moon is still partially lit by reflected Earthlight, but it does turn a deep, dark red colour.  In a partial eclipse the Earth passes completely through the Moon's penumbra, but only partly through its umbra.  

Phases of the Lunar Eclipse that will be seen on 18 October 2023. The times are given in GMT, to the nearest 10th of a minute, thus 22.28.3 represents 18 seconds after 10.28 pm GMT. US Naval Observatory/HM Nautical Almanac Office.

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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter detects Luna 25 impact crator.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected a new crater on the Moon, thought likely to have been caused by the impact of the lost Russian probe, Luna 25, according to a press release issued on 31 August 2023. The crater is located on the inner rim of Pontécoulant G Crater, a position along Luna 25's planned trajectory, but about 400 km short of its intended landing site. This is approximately where Russia's Roscosmos space agency has predicted the probe impacted the Moon.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter views from 27 June 2020, and 24  August 2023; before and after the appearance of a new impact crater likely from Russia’s Luna 25 mission. NASA.

Roscosmos, has lost contact with its Luna-25 spacecraft on Saturday 19 August, after a thruster rocket fired for 127 seconds instead of 84 as was planned, and believes that it has been destroyed after crashing into the Moon. The probe was intended to mark Russia's return to the Moon for the first time since the Soviet Luna 24 probe in 1977, which was the first robotic probe to land on the surface of another Solar System body, collect a sample, and return to Earth.

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Russian Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon, while Indian Chandrayaan-3 lands successfully.

The Russian Space Agency. Roscosmos, has lost contact with its Luna-25 spacecraft, and believes that it has been destroyed after crashing into the Moon. The craft was planned to land on the Moon on Monday 21 August 2023, but during a manoeuvre to enter Lunar orbit on Saturday 19 August a thruster rocket fired for 127 seconds instead of 84 as was planned, and contact was lost shortly afterwards.

The Luna-25 Probe being launched on a Soyuz 2.1b rocket, from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Amur Oblast of the Russian Far East on Friday11 August 2023. Roscosmos/Reuters.

The Lana-25 spacecraft was intended to land close to the Lunar South Pole, a region where there are theorized to be significant deposits of water ice, something likely to be of great use in the developing of any permanent Human outpost on the Moon. Discovering proof of this would have been a significant achievement for Roscosmos, demonstrating an ability to undertake serious space-exploration work without help from the European Space Agency, which pulled out of a supporting role in the mission following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This means that the first spacecraft to reach the area was be the Indian Chandrayaan-3 probe, which landed near the Lunar South Pole on 23 August.

The Soviet Luna-6 spacecraft performed the first successful soft landing on the Moon in February 1966, following the first successful orbit of the Moon by the Luna-3 spacecraft in October 1959. This orbiter-first-then-lander model was followed by the American Apollo Missions later in the 1960s, the Chinese Chang'e Program in the early twenty-first century, and most recently the Indian Chandrayaan Program, but has been skipped by recent the Russian attempt to return to the Moon.

This is the third Russian attempt to land a space probe on another Solar System body since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the third to have failed, with the Mars-96 mission to Mars in 1996 and the Phobos-Grunt mission to the Martian moon Phobos both having failed during their launch phase. The failure of the Luna-25 mission has now left many space experts both inside and outside of Russia questioning whether Roscosmos is capable of pulling of significant research missions on its own.

India, meanwhile, is celebrating the landing of the Vikram lander from its Chandrayaan-3 space mission, its's first successful lunar landing (the earlier Chandrayaan-2 crashed during a landing attempt in September 2019). The mission blasted off from Sriharikota Island, on the coast of Andhra Pradesh to the north of Chennai, on 14 July, taking a slower route to the Moon than most other missions, but one which used much less fuel, and which was therefore significantly cheaper), with the Vikram landing module separating from the main propulsion unit on 17 August, six days before eventually landing. If the mission continues as planned, the Pragyan Rover should shortly be deployed from the landing module, and spend the next few weeks exploring the area, and looking for the hoped for water ice.

The launch of the Chandrayaan-3 space mission from Sriharikota Island, Andhra Pradesh, on 14 July 2023. Indian Space Research Organisation/Wikimedia Commons.

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Partial Solar Eclipse to be visible from parts of Antarctica and South America.

A partial Solar Eclipse will occur on Saturday 30 April 2022, which will be visible from parts of Peru and the south Pacific. Part of the eclipse will also be visible from Chile, Argentina, Uraguay and parts of Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, and Antarctica, where the Sun will either rise or set part way through the eclipse. The event will occur between 6.45 pm and 10.38 pm, GMT.

 

The area over which the 30 April 2022 partial Solar Eclipse will be visible. Areas in darker grey will be able to observe the entire eclipse, in the lighter grey areas the eclipse will either begin before sunrise or end after sunset, so only part of the event will be visible. HMNautical Almanac Office.

Eclipses are a product of the way the Earth, Moon and Sun move about one-another. The Moon orbits the Earth every 28 days, while the Earth orbits the Sun every 365 days, and because the two Sun and Moon appear roughly the same size when seen from Earth, it is quite possible for the Moon to block out the light of the Sun. At first sight this would seem likely to happen every month at the New Moon, when the Moon is on the same side of the Earth as the Sun, and therefore invisible (the Moon produced no light of its own, when we see the Moon we are seeing reflected sunlight, but this can only happen when we can see parts of the Moon illuminated by the Sun)

 

 

The relative positions of the Sun, Moon and Earth during a Solar eclipse. Starry Night.

However the Moon does not orbit in quite the same plane as the Earth orbits the Sun, so the Eclipses only occur when the two orbital planes cross one-another; this typically happens two or three times a year, and always at the New Moon. During Total Eclipses the Moon entirely blocks the light of the Sun, however most Eclipses are Partial, the Moon only partially blocks the light of the Sun.

 

How the differing inclinations of the Earth and Moon's orbits prevent us having an eclipse every 28 days. Starry Skies.

Although the light of the Sun is reduced during an Eclipse, it is still extremely dangerous to look directly at the Sun, and an eclipse should always be viewed using appropriate equipment.

 

Animation showing the shadow of the Moon at five minute intervals on 30 April 2022. Andrew Sinclair/HM Nautical Almanac.

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