When the Sun, Earth and Moon line up, the shadow cast by the planet on its satellite makes it appear an eerie, deep red colour that has astounded humans for millennia.

The phenomenon was visible late Sunday across the planet with some of those in a remote lodge in Samburu county, hundreds of miles from capital Nairobi, where the Kenya's tourism ministry and the Kenya Space Agency launched a drive to push "astro-tourism".

Foreign tourists mingled with local dancers -- wearing fantastically colourful beads and draped cloths -- as they took turns gazing through telescopes at the slowly reddening moon and the kaleidoscope of stars around it.

"It's an amazing experience," Kenyan visitor Stella-Maris Miriti, 35, told AFP.

"At first I thought it was not happening because the moon was dark... but at 8.30 the magic happened," she added.

The tour operator had travelled up from Nairobi to see the "blood moon" away from the city's lights.

Waiting her turn at the telescope, was 26-year-old Maggie Debbe, visiting with her parents from Australia.

"I think it's awesome, I just did not expect any of this," she told AFP.

- 'Game-changer' -

Kenya hopes to capitalise on star-struck tourists like Debbe.

The country has some of the lowest light pollution levels in the world, according to the Bortle dark-sky scale -- which measures night sky light -- and an already thriving tourism industry which accounts for almost 10 percent of the country's GDP.

Astro-tourism could be a fresh reason for tourists to visit, believes Jacques Matara, the Kenya Space Agency's deputy director of Space Research and Innovation.

"We have that advantage of having some of the most beautiful and clear skies worldwide," he told AFP.

"Astro-tourism is our opportunity to create awareness about the utility of space for socio-economic development," he said.

"This is something that could be game-changing, especially in our tourism sector."

As the "blood moon" shone down between the stars, Johanns Hertogh-van der Laan, a 75-year-old ex-teacher from Holland, certainly agreed.

Having come to Kenya with his wife to see the wildlife, he said he had been blown away by the night skies.

"It has been, I think, 40 years ago that I saw it as clear as now," he told AFP.

'Blood Moon' rises during total lunar eclipse
Paris (AFP) Sept 7, 2025 - Stargazers enjoyed a "Blood Moon" Sunday night during a total lunar eclipse visible across Asia and swathes of Europe and Africa.

When the Sun, Earth and Moon line up, the shadow cast by the planet on its satellite makes it appear an eerie, deep red colour that has astounded humans for millennia.

People in Asia, including India and China, were best placed to see Sunday's total eclipse, which was also be visible on the eastern edge of Africa as well as in western Australia.

The total lunar eclipse lasted from 1730 GMT to 1852 GMT.

Stargazers in Europe and Africa also got a brief chance to see a partial eclipse just as the Moon rose during the early evening, but the Americas missed out.

The Moon appears red during lunar eclipses because the only sunlight reaching it is "reflected and scattered through the Earth's atmosphere", said Ryan Milligan, an astrophysicist at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Blue wavelengths of light are shorter than red ones, so are more easily dispersed as they travel through Earth's atmosphere, he told AFP.

"That's what gives the Moon its red, bloody colour."

While special glasses or pinhole projectors are needed to safely observe solar eclipses, all that is required to see a lunar eclipse is clear weather -- and being in the right spot.

The last total lunar eclipse was in March this year, while the one before that was in 2022.

A rare total solar eclipse, when the Moon blocks out the light from the Sun, will be visible in a sliver of Europe on August 12, 2026.

Next year's totality -- the first in mainland Europe since 2006 -- will be visible only in Spain and Iceland, though other countries will be able to see a significant partial eclipse.

In Spain, the totality will be visible in a roughly 160-kilometre (100-mile) band between Madrid and Barcelona, but neither city will see the full phenomenon, Milligan said.

It will be the first total solar eclipse since one swept across North America in April 2024.

Related Links
Solar Science News at SpaceDaily