Did you miss it? See the best photos from the 2026 Americas, Europe lunar eclipse

If weather conditions or your sleep schedule got in the way of seeing Thursday night's total lunar eclipse, we've found some of the best images of what you missed.

For those who were lucky enough to have clear skies, the celestial event was visible for a few hours Thursday night into early Friday morning for much of North and South America and parts of Europe. And as you can see in the slideshow at the top of this page, it did not disappoint.

The moon was already in the spotlight. NASA sent the Artemis II astronauts on a record-breaking lunar flyby in April, the prelude to eventually landing on the surface and building a base swarming with people and robots over the next several years.

“This is a great time to be part of the space program, right? We’re not slowing down,” NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway told The Associated Press from the International Space Station last week.

It was the second act of the greatest show in the solar system, coming two weeks after a total solar eclipse paraded through Greenland, Iceland and Spain.

Eclipses always travel in pairs as the sun, moon and Earth align so precisely that one obscures the other. That’s because the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun, which is 400 times farther away, making them appear the same size — a cosmic coincidence and gift from the universe.

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And if you're looking for more natural wonders to dazzle you, check these out:

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Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.