| March 1 | A ‘Celestial Smiley Face’’ |
| March 5 | The Moon and Jupiter Rendezvous |
| March 13 | ‘Blood Moon’ Lunar Eclipse |
| March 14 | Full Worm Moon |
| March 20 | Vernal (Spring) Equinox |
| March 22 | Venus Becomes the Morning Star Again |
While February’s grand planetary parade might be behind us, March will still afford good opportunities to see many of the parade’s participants—especially Mercury. The solar system’s smallest planet will be relatively easy to spot during the first half of the month. There’s also a full lunar eclipse to look forward to, and one of Venus’ periodic transitions from evening star to morning star.
March 1– A ‘Celestial Smiley Face’
Venus, in particular, will be strutting her stuff across the sky in early March. The planet will be blazing brightly enough to be easily visible with the naked eye. By contrast, Mercury’s relatively small size and proximity to the sun typically makes it difficult to identify in the night sky. However, during the first two weeks of March, observers will have two excellent opportunities to see it.
During this time, Mercury will be surprisingly bright—the fourth brightest object in the sky.Its brilliance will only fall behind the planets Venus and Jupiter and the star Sirius. The catch is that it sets only 90 minutes after sunset, so you’ll need to dash outside as soon as the sun goes down.
While Mercury will be visible throughout early March, there will be two nights that provide especially good opportunities to see it: March 1 and March 7. On March 1, the position of the crescent moon will aid in spotting Mercury, according to Space.com.
The easiest way to find Mercury will be to find Venus first—which should be easy, as it’ll be the single brightest object in the sky. Once you’ve found Venus, look down and slightly to the left. Mercury will be hovering just above the horizon—and a little further to the left, roughly between the two planets. The crescent moon will complete a celestial smiley face for the ages.
March 5– The Moon and Jupiter Rendezvous
After March 1, the moon’s trajectory in the sky will take it away from Mercury and Venus, towards another of the brightest objects in the sky: Jupiter. On March 5, the crescent will appear at its closest to Jupiter, making the planetary behemoth of our solar system easy to spot. The ever-essential Farmer’s Almanac advises looking for both moon and planet an hour after sunset, and keeping an eye out for the orange star Aldabaran, which will be just below them.
March 13- ‘Blood Moon’ Lunar Eclipse!
It’s quite a month for the moon: as well as the aforementioned emoji-related hijinks, March brings the only full lunar eclipse of 2025. The event will fully last from 11:57 p.m.on March 13 to 6 a.m. EDT on March 14. Totality will occur between 2:26 and 03:31 a.m. EDT.
Full lunar eclipses occur when the moon passes entirely into the Earth’s shadow, and while they’re not as spectacular as full solar eclipses—which involve the Earth passing completely into the moon’s shadow—they’re still events worth seeing!
[ Related: How the blood moon gets its ghoulish hue. ]
You may also see this event referred to as a “blood moon”, a name derived from the color the moon takes on during the eclipse. While a solar eclipse plunges the Earth into fleeting darkness, this doesn’t happen for the moon: some light is refracted through our atmosphere onto the moon’s surface. The light that reaches the moon is largely toward the low-wavelength, red end of the visible spectrum, because higher-wavelength light tends to be scattered by the atmosphere.
March 14- Full Worm Moon
Once it’s reassuringly visible again in the night sky, the moon will reach its peak illumination on March 14 at 2:55 a.m. EST. March’s full moon is called the Worm Moon, a name that’s believed to reference the earthworms that begin to emerge from hibernation as spring starts to warm the earth again. Additional Native American names for March’s full moon include the “Hard Crust on the Snow Moon” (Anishinaabemowin), the moon of the Strawberry/First Leaves month (Cherokee) and the delightful “The Day is Cut in Two Moon” (Oneida.)
March 20– Vernal (Spring) Equinox
While it might have seemed like the Northern Hemisphere’s winter was never going to end, the season will officially come to a close on March 20, with the vernal–or spring–equinox. This equinox (and its counterpart, the autumnal equinox, which heralds the start of fall) are the two days on which the Northern and Southern Hemispheres receive essentially the same amount of sunlight, because neither is tilted in relation to the sun.
[ Related: Why 60 degrees in fall feels different than in the spring. ]
March 22- Venus Becomes the Morning Star Again
Historically, Venus was sometimes called the “morning star”. However, sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that earlier this month, the planet was decidedly uninterested in the morning, preferring to show herself off in the night sky. This occurs because Venus’s position in the sky actually oscillates between morning and night, depending on how the planet is positioned in relation to both the Earth and the sun.
March 22 marks one such transition. Venus will pass briefly between the Earth and the Sun, forming an alignment known as an “inferior conjunction”. By comparison, a “superior conjunction” happens when Venus aligns with the Earth and the Sun, but is on the other side of the latter. After March 22, Venus will remain in the morning sky for the rest of 2025.
Whatever cosmic wonders you plan to spy in March, remember that you’ll have the best results if you get away from the lights of your city or town, and as far as possible from any other sources of light pollution.
Once you’re at your destination, set up your telescope (if you’re lucky enough to have one!), or otherwise just find a nice spot to sit and gaze at the sky. Review our stargazing tips, give your eyes half an hour to get used to the darkness, then look aloft and immerse yourself in the beauty of the cosmos.
Until next month!
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