Blood moon above Mayan pyramid
Animated time-lapse sequence of a blood moon setting behind the ancient Mayan pyramid, Kukulkan, at Chichen Itza, Yucatan. The night sky is punctuated by bright streaks from shooting stars and the lights of passing jets. Blood moons occur during total lunar eclipses like the one that was visible from the Yucatan and most of North America on November 8, 2022. The copper-red color of a blood moon occurs when direct sunlight is totally blocked by the Earth, and the only light reaching the moon is that which is refracted and filtered by the Earth's atmosphere in such a way that red wavelengths become more visible than blue. The optical phenomenon behind blood moons is referred to as Rayleigh scattering which is also responsible for the red sunrises and sunsets we see on Earth. To the Maya, eclipses, both lunar and solar, could be portents of doom and were sometimes associated with bloodletting and human sacrifice