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Excited for the August 21 eclipse? Read this Entire article.
Darkness overtaking a sunny afternoon sky completely sounds like an apocalyptic storyline right?. But you don't need to ration your food just yet. That's exactly what occurs during a total solar eclipse. Imminent doom?
The real star performer of the whole event is the moon. That's the thing getting in the way to jazz up your sunny day, after all. A solar eclipse can only occur during a new moon. During this phase, the moon isn't visible because the illuminated side of the moon faces away from the Earth. If we could see any bit of the moon during this phase, a solar eclipse would be impossible. How could the sun illuminate any part of the moon the same time that the moon blocks out part or all of the sun's disc? Get out your flashlight and basketball, and try to simultaneously create a shadow on the basketball and shine some light on the basketball-facing side of your fist. Not gonna happen.
The reason experiencing a total solar eclipse where you live is so rare is because the eclipse's path of totality (where on Earth the moon totally blocks the view of the sun's disc) is very narrow, as little as 70 miles across. That's roughly the distance between Chicago and Milwaukee.
This doesn't mean total solar eclipses are especially rare, though. "Total solar eclipses happen about every 18 months somewhere in the world, on average." Amir Caspi, a senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, explains. "But, the Earth is mostly water, so most of the time eclipses are going to be happening over water." Even when an eclipse does cross over land, that doesn't make it a sure bet either. "Most of the Earth is unpopulated," Caspi adds, "and it requires a great deal of effort to go and catch an eclipse when it's crossing over a remote part of another continent."
Darkness overtaking a sunny afternoon sky completely sounds like an apocalyptic storyline right?. But you don't need to ration your food just yet. That's exactly what occurs during a total solar eclipse. Imminent doom?
Darkness will Fall Across the Land
Let's do a quick science experiment here. Shine a flashlight on a basketball. Move your fist between the flashlight and basketball, in front of the beam of light. Congrats! You've just made a solar eclipse diorama, where the flashlight is the sun, your fist is the moon, and the basketball is the Earth. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon blocks any part of the sun's disc as it passes between the Earth and the sun. (Not to be confused with a lunar eclipse, which occurs when the moon passes behind Earth's shadow.)The real star performer of the whole event is the moon. That's the thing getting in the way to jazz up your sunny day, after all. A solar eclipse can only occur during a new moon. During this phase, the moon isn't visible because the illuminated side of the moon faces away from the Earth. If we could see any bit of the moon during this phase, a solar eclipse would be impossible. How could the sun illuminate any part of the moon the same time that the moon blocks out part or all of the sun's disc? Get out your flashlight and basketball, and try to simultaneously create a shadow on the basketball and shine some light on the basketball-facing side of your fist. Not gonna happen.
The Rarest Common Event
Because that's just an average, some spots will get a longer or shorter eclipse drought, though. Take Princeton, New Jersey, for example. The last total eclipse visible there was in 1478 and the next one isn't until 2079, a difference of 601 years. On the other hand, Carbondale, Illinois gets a total solar eclipse in 2017 and again just seven years later in 2024. How's that for good luck?The reason experiencing a total solar eclipse where you live is so rare is because the eclipse's path of totality (where on Earth the moon totally blocks the view of the sun's disc) is very narrow, as little as 70 miles across. That's roughly the distance between Chicago and Milwaukee.
This doesn't mean total solar eclipses are especially rare, though. "Total solar eclipses happen about every 18 months somewhere in the world, on average." Amir Caspi, a senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, explains. "But, the Earth is mostly water, so most of the time eclipses are going to be happening over water." Even when an eclipse does cross over land, that doesn't make it a sure bet either. "Most of the Earth is unpopulated," Caspi adds, "and it requires a great deal of effort to go and catch an eclipse when it's crossing over a remote part of another continent."
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