The Night Sky This Month – March 2025

Total lunar eclipse of April 15, 2014 (credit: Alfredo Garcia, Jr.)

(Looking for last month’s ‘Night Sky’? Find it at this link…)

March begins with all seven major planets visible – barely – and six of them visible for sure during the first two weeks of the month. A total lunar eclipse arrives at the full moon, the first since 2022, visible in all of North America, western Europe, and western South America. After the ‘planet parade’ at the beginning of the month, Neptune and Saturn disappear into the Sun’s glare and will soon reappear in the morning sky. And Venus remains astonishingly bright, its thin crescent a fine spectacle in a telescope before it disappears into the Sun’s glare. Here’s what to see in the night sky this month…

Saturn, Mercury, Venus, and the crescent Moon in the western sky after sunset on March 1, 2025. The cyan circle shows a 5-degree field of view.

1 March 2025. All seven major planets appear in the sky as March begins. Look for Mercury low in the west at evening twilight, bright enough at magnitude -0.9 to shine through the darkening sky. Saturn lies about 6^o west of (below) Mercury – it’s the most challenging planet to view and requires a telescope or good pair of binoculars and a clear view down to the western horizon. Neptune lies 2^o to the southeast of Mercury and also calls for a telescope. About 15^o above Mercury lies brilliant Venus which shines at magnitude -4.6 and reveals a thin crescent to telescopic observers. Tonight, a thin crescent Moon joins the show near Venus. Further up, Jupiter lies nearly overhead in Taurus, still bright at magnitude -2.3, while dimming Mars lingers to the east in Gemini. And Uranus lies in Aries within reach of modest binoculars. It’s a challenge to see all seven, but give it a try!

5-6 March. Look for the Moon near the Pleiades star cluster on these two nights.

6 March. First Quarter Moon, 16:32 UT

8 March. Mercury reaches greatest eastern elongation about 18^o from the Sun. The planet puts on its best evening apparition for northern-hemisphere observers in the first two weeks of March, reaching a peak brightness tonight of magnitude -0.5. It lies about 7^o due south of Venus tonight in the constellation Pisces.

9 March. Daylight Saving Time begins today (Sunday), setting clocks ahead by one hour in much of North America and making all of us sleepier!

12 March. Saturn reaches conjunction with the Sun. It will reappear in the morning sky later in the month near the Pisces-Aquarius border.

14 March. Full Moon, 06:55 UT (the full ‘Worm Moon’)

The visibility of the total lunar eclipse of March 1, 2025. Image credit: NASA.

14 March. A total lunar eclipse arrives with the March full ‘Worm Moon’ for observers in North America and the western South America, and in part in western Europe and Africa. The eclipse happens from 03:57 UTC to 10:00 UTC, with totality running 66 minutes from 06:26 UTC to 07:32 UTC. Peak eclipse arrives at 06:59 UTC. During this eclipse, the Moon lies at the northern edge of the umbra, the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow, so it appears slightly brighter at its northern limb and darker towards its southern limb. The good folks at timeanddate.com have more details and location timing.

16 March. As the Moon moves out of the way in the evening sky, northern observers far from city lights can spot the zodiacal light in the western sky after sunset. This whitish wedge-shaped glow emerges at a steep angle to the western horizon this time of year. It’s caused by sunlight reflected by fine dust grains along the plane of the solar system. The zodiacal light is brightest closer to the Sun, so look for it about half an hour after the end of evening twilight as it extends up from the horizon towards the constellation Taurus.

20 March. Neptune lies in conjunction with the Sun. It will reappear in the morning sky in the coming weeks.

20 March. The equinox arrives at 9:01 UT as the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving north. This marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern hemisphere.

22 March. Last Quarter Moon, 11:29 UT

23 March. Venus reaches inferior conjunction with the Sun and passes 8.4^o north of it. This ends a spectacular apparition in the evening sky. It will soon reappear low in the morning sky for the rest of the year.

This is a Hubble Space Telescope snapshot of Saturn with its rings barely visible (at top). Normally, astronomers see Saturn with its rings tilted. Earth was almost in the plane of Saturn’s rings, thus the rings appear edge-on. The bottom shows Saturn with its rings slightly tilted. The moon called Dione, on the lower right, is casting a long, thin shadow across the whole ring system due to the setting Sun on the ring plane. The moon on the upper left of Saturn is Tethys.

23 March. Earth passes through the ring plane of Saturn. If we could see the planet today, the thin Saturnian rings would essentially invisible. Over the next many years, the tilt of Saturn’s rings will slowly increase relative to our point of view.

29 March. New Moon, 10:58 UT. This new Moon also features a partial solar eclipse visible in northern Quebec and Greenland, among other places. More details here.