From open prairie land on the 1625-acre Johnson Space Center site, a Johnson Space Center photographer took this multi-frame composite image of the so-called “Blood Moon” lunar eclipse in the early hours of April 15.

The eclipse is a phenomenon that occurs when the Earth, moon and sun are in perfect alignment, blanketing the moon in the Earth’s shadow. The United States will not be able to witness a full lunar eclipse in its entirety again until 2019. As for the blood moon reference, this is a term that the media has picked up and run with recently. It is in reference to the four ‘red moons’ of a lunar tetrad. A lunar tetrad refers to four successive total lunar eclipses with no partial lunar eclipses in between, each of which is separated from the other by six lunar months (six full moons). There’s a good write-up on EarthSky about the whole ‘blood moon’ thing.