Plumes of black smoke have emerged from the chimney on top of the Sistine Chapel, signalling that the 133 cardinals sealed off inside have failed to elect a new pope on the first day of conclave.

After the formal procession to the Sistine Chapel and each of the cardinals swearing the oath to secrecy, the first voting round only got under way at about 5.45pm local time.

Then all eyes were on the famous chimney, which was diligently guarded by a seagull for some of the time the cardinals were voting.

After a tense wait, black smoke finally appeared at 9:05pm – to loud applause from the crowd of more than 45,000 below.

The conclave will continue on Thursday, and end only when a successor to Pope Francis, who died last month aged 88, is found.

What to expect tomorrow?

Jakub Krupa

Up to four rounds of voting tomorrow (and in the following days).

The first one is expected 9.30am local time (8.30am BST), and the second one closer to midday (11am local time).

They then will take a lunch break until 4pm, with another two rounds expected around 5.30pm and 7pm local time (4.30pm and 6pm).

For now, the electors will go back to Santa Marta guesthouse for their dinner – but will be back in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow.

Black smoke from Sistine Chapel - snap analysis

Jakub Krupa

Well, that was expected – even if took longer than we anticipated.

We have 133 cardinal electors, many of whom are new – appointed by Pope Francis – and so they don’t know each other that well.

They will understandably need more time to decide on the right person to be confirmed as the pope.

The delay is interesting, but there are so many potential reasons for it and it wouldn’t be wise to speculate.

The cardinals will be back for more votes tomorrow: up to four rounds, if needed. Two in the morning, two in the afternoon.

No decision in the first round of the vote.

We are now well into the fourth hour since the doors to the Sistine Chapel were closed.

It’s getting darker and darker in the Vatican as thousands of faithful in St Peter’s Square and millions around the world await the result of the first vote.

Jakub Krupa

A reader mails in to ask a perfectly legitimate question about the history of the Roman seagulls and how they ended up in-land.

Personally, I have no idea, but absolutely love the question.

Having said that, turns out our Rome correspondent Angela Giuffirda offers a hint of what could be the answer here in one of her recent reports from the Italian capital:

(A Rome zoologist Andrea) Lunerti said: “Rome really needs to get a grip on its waste management, otherwise we will be seeing even more snakes and hornets, not to mention the rats and seagulls – there are more seagulls in Rome than there are in Fregene (a nearby coastal town).”

He said that at least the seagulls helped reduce the numbers of rats and snakes. “A snake was captured by a seagull and dropped on to a terrace,” he said. “The city has become a proper jungle.”

Last year Venice also had to briefly close its airport because of seagulls, but then that makes more sense given its location…

In any case, if anyone knows the full story of the Roman seagulls, please email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com.

As we wait…

A lot of people following the real-life conclave probably watched the hit Oscar-winning movie starring Ralph Fiennes to see what to expect to happen in the next few days.

(I certainly did and, if Politico is to be believed, even some of the actual cardinals taking part in it did, too.)

And my colleague Adrian Horton asked the right question:

As a deft and highly entertaining thriller on the furtive process of electing a new pope, well, you can expect people to consider Conclave as close to documentary as laypeople can get to the action. But how accurate is it?

Well, according to experts, more spot-on than not, and at the very least meticulously researched.

Here are their answers in full:

An X user even produced a helpful side-by-side clip now, if you want to compare the fiction and the reality.

Jakub Krupa

The wait continues. I think I recognise most seagulls on this roof by now.

If you wonder about the chemistry behind the Vatican smoke, here’s our explainer from the last conclave in 2013.

Historically, some of the conclaves were really drawn out: in 13th century, they needed three years, over 1,000 days, to choose Gregory X.

There was also one that ended on the same day, although it started earlier in the morning: Julius II in 1503 was elected after just 10 hours.

But in the last 150 years, it was usually a much shorter process: the longest, for Pius XI in 1922, took 5 days.

Francis was elected on the second day in 2013, after five rounds of voting; similarly, Benedict XVI needed just four rounds to be confirmed as the new pope in 2005, as did John Paul I in 1978.

A bit more time was needed to confirm John Paul II – three days, eight rounds – in 1978, and John XXIII in 1958, with 11 votes over four days. But then his immediate predecessor, Pius XII was elected after just three rounds.

So, the recent history seems to suggest we could very well have a new pope before the weekend.

But since the process is so secretive and there are so many moving elements with a record-high number of cardinals involved in the process this year, there’s no way to predict what happens behind the closed doors.

Let’s see.

As we wait for black or white smoke after the first vote, some Catholic women campaigners released pink smoke from flares, and demanded that women be allowed to seek ordination, AFP reported.

“We are saying to the cardinals, you cannot keep ignoring 50% of the Catholic population, you cannot go into a locked room and discuss the future of the Church without half of the Church,” said Miriam Duignan.

“Whoever they elect needs to be brave enough to properly tackle the question of women’s inclusion, because so far it has not been, even by Pope Francis,” said Duignan, of the Wijngaards Institute in Cambridge.

In the global church as a whole, women have begun to take some senior lay roles, a process that accelerated a little under Pope Francis’s papacy.
But even those who have studied theology and church ministry are excluded from the priesthood, and only priests hold the most senior leadership roles, AFP noted.

If you want to make sure you don’t miss the result of the first vote when it comes, here’s our live stream showing the chimney on top of the Sistine Chapel:

This conclave is billed as the largest and possibly the most unpredictable conclave to ever take place. So let’s take a look at the Vatican’s own statistics.

There are 133 cardinals electors (well, technically there are 135, but two were too ill to attend) from 70 countries, up from 115 from 48 nations in the last conclave in 2013.

The youngest one is Mykola Bychok, 45, from Ukraine; the oldest is Carlos Osoro Sierra, who turns 80 in less than two weeks. Those over 80 are not involved in the process.

107 of them were appointed by Pope Francis, 21 by Pope Benedict XVI, and five by Pope John Paul II.

The successful candidate needs a two-third majority, 89 votes, to get elected.

So, where do they come from?

The highest national representation comes from Italy (17) ahead of the US (10), Brazil (7), Spain and France (5 each).

Here is how it looks on the map: