The smoke bil­lowed out at 9 p.m. Wednes­day, some four hours af­ter 133 car­di­nals solemn­ly en­tered the Sis­tine Chapel, took their oaths of se­cre­cy and for­mal­ly opened the cen­turies-old rit­u­al to elect a suc­ces­sor to Pope Fran­cis to lead the 1.4 bil­lion-mem­ber church.

With no one se­cur­ing the nec­es­sary two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty, or 89 votes, the car­di­nals will re­tire for the night to the Vat­i­can res­i­dences where they are be­ing se­questered.

They re­turn to the Sis­tine Chapel on Thurs­day morn­ing.

What to know

How the pope is elect­ed: The Col­lege of Car­di­nals, com­posed of 133 vot­ing el­i­gi­ble car­di­nals, will be se­questered in­side the Vat­i­can to pray, dis­cern and vote for the next pope with­out dis­trac­tion. They will host their first and on­ly vote of the day this evening in the Sis­tine Chapel. A two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty is re­quired for a new pope to be elect­ed. Vot­ing ses­sions on sub­se­quent days, should they be need­ed, will oc­cur reg­u­lar­ly in the morn­ing and af­ter­noon un­til a pope is se­lect­ed.

Smoke watch: Af­ter vot­ing, bal­lots are burned in a spe­cial stove — black smoke sig­nals no de­ci­sion, while white smoke means a new pope has been cho­sen. Smoke is ex­pect­ed to rise from the Vat­i­can chim­ney around 7 p.m.

Car­di­nals con­tenders: There are no of­fi­cial can­di­dates for the pa­pa­cy, but some car­di­nals are con­sid­ered “pa­pa­bile,” or pos­sess­ing the char­ac­ter­is­tics nec­es­sary to be­come pope. Some names in­clude Pietro Parolin, who will over­see the con­clave, Luis Tagle, dubbed the “Asian Fran­cis,” Fridolin Am­bon­go Be­sun­gu, a con­ser­v­a­tive car­di­nal na­tive to the Con­go, and Pier­bat­tista Piz­z­a­bal­la, po­ten­tial­ly the first Ital­ian pope in decades.