Photos: World in awe as Blood Moon appears

The heavens put on a show tonight as a rare Blood Moon lit up skies across the world, turning night into a stage for nature’s drama.

From Sydney to St Petersburg, Copenhagen to Islamabad, millions of sky-gazers lifted their eyes to witness the Moon glowing in fiery shades of red during a total lunar eclipse on Sunday.

In Denmark, crowds gathered to watch the glowing orb, while in Switzerland, the Moon rose behind church steeples, its crimson glow adding a mystical edge to the scene. Over in Pakistan, photographers captured its craters drenched in darker tones of red, while Australians stood in awe as the blood-red Moon hovered above Sydney’s skyline.

But why did the Moon turn red? Rachel Dutton, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, told the BBC it’s all about Earth’s atmosphere.

“As sunlight passes through, the atmosphere scatters the blue light and bends the red around, giving us that beautiful crimson glow,” she explained.

The phenomenon known as Rayleigh scattering is the same process that makes our skies blue by day and our sunsets red by evening.

The lunar eclipse reached its peak at 19:53 BST, when the Moon was fully swallowed by Earth’s shadow. After that, it gradually slipped into a partial and then penumbral eclipse, fading back into its familiar form by 21:55 BST.

For those who were lucky enough to have clear skies, last night’s Blood Moon was more than just an eclipse. It was a reminder of the universe’s timeless ability to stop us in our tracks and paint wonder across the night

See photos below: