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What Is An Eclipse?

An eclipse occurs when one astronomical object passes in front of another and temporarily obscures it. Eclipses can involve the Sun, Moon, or planets in a solar system. For the Earth-Moon system, solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, and lunar eclipses occur when the Moon passes into Earth's shadow. Eclipses can only happen during specific alignment periods called eclipse seasons, and total solar eclipses in particular are rare events at any given location that may span decades.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
84 views5 pages

What Is An Eclipse?

An eclipse occurs when one astronomical object passes in front of another and temporarily obscures it. Eclipses can involve the Sun, Moon, or planets in a solar system. For the Earth-Moon system, solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, and lunar eclipses occur when the Moon passes into Earth's shadow. Eclipses can only happen during specific alignment periods called eclipse seasons, and total solar eclipses in particular are rare events at any given location that may span decades.

Uploaded by

Don Santino Lee
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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What Is an Eclipse?

An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when


an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, either by
passing into the shadow of another body or by having
another body pass between it and the viewer. This
alignment of three celestial objects is known as
a syzygy. Apart from syzygy, the term eclipse is also used
when a spacecraft reaches a position where it can
observe two celestial bodies so aligned. An eclipse is the
result of either an occultation (completely hidden) or
a transit (partially hidden).
The term eclipse is most often used to describe either
a solar eclipse, when the Moon's shadow crosses the
Earth's surface, or a lunar eclipse, when the Moon moves
into the Earth's shadow. However, it can also refer to such
events beyond the Earth–Moon system: for example, a
planet moving into the shadow cast by one of its moons, a
moon passing into the shadow cast by its host planet, or a
moon passing into the shadow of another moon. A binary
star system can also produce eclipses if the plane of the
orbit of its constituent stars intersects the observer's
position.
For the special cases of solar and lunar eclipses, these
only happen during an "eclipse season", the two times of
each year when the plane of the Earth's orbit around the
Sun crosses with the plane of the Moon's orbit around the
Earth. The type of solar eclipse that happens during each
season (whether total, annular, hybrid, or partial) depends
on apparent sizes of the Sun and Moon. If the orbit of the
Earth around the Sun, and the Moon's orbit around the
Earth were both in the same plane with each other, then
eclipses would happen each and every month. There
would be a lunar eclipse at every full moon, and a solar
eclipse at every new moon. And if both orbits were
perfectly circular, then each solar eclipse would be the
same type every month. It is because of the non-planar
and non-circular differences that eclipses are not a
common event. Lunar eclipses can be viewed from the
entire nightside half of the Earth. But solar eclipses,
particularly a total eclipse, as occurring at any one
particular point on the Earth's surface, is a rare event that
can span many decades from one to the next.
Earth–Moon system
An eclipse involving the Sun, Earth, and Moon can occur only when
they are nearly in a straight line, allowing one to be hidden behind
another, viewed from the third. Because the orbital plane of the
Moon is tilted with respect to the orbital plane of the Earth
(the ecliptic), eclipses can occur only when the Moon is close to the
intersection of these two planes (the nodes). The Sun, Earth and
nodes are aligned twice a year (during an eclipse season), and
eclipses can occur during a period of about two months around these
times. There can be from four to seven eclipses in a calendar year,
which repeat according to various eclipse cycles, such as a saros.
Between 1901 and 2100 there are the maximum of seven eclipses in:

 four (penumbral) lunar and three solar eclipses: 1908, 2038.


 four solar and three lunar eclipses: 1918, 1973, 2094.
 five solar and two lunar eclipses: 1934.
Excluding penumbral lunar eclipses, there are a maximum of seven
eclipses in:[11]

 1591, 1656, 1787, 1805, 1918, 1935, 1982, and 2094.


Solar eclipse
As observed from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon
passes in front of the Sun. The type of solar eclipse event depends on
the distance of the Moon from the Earth during the event. A total solar
eclipse occurs when the Earth intersects the umbra portion of the
Moon's shadow. When the umbra does not reach the surface of the
Earth, the Sun is only partially occulted, resulting in an annular
eclipse. Partial solar eclipses occur when the viewer is inside the
penumbra.
The eclipse magnitude is the fraction of the Sun's diameter that is
covered by the Moon. For a total eclipse, this value is always greater
than or equal to one. In both annular and total eclipses, the eclipse
magnitude is the ratio of the angular sizes of the Moon to the Sun
Solar eclipses are relatively brief events that can only be viewed in
totality along a relatively narrow track. Under the most favorable
circumstances, a total solar eclipse can last for 7 minutes,
31 seconds, and can be viewed along a track that is up to 250 km
wide. However, the region where a partial eclipse can be observed is
much larger. The Moon's umbra will advance eastward at a rate of
1,700 km/h, until it no longer intersects the Earth's surface.
During a solar eclipse, the Moon can sometimes perfectly cover the
Sun because its apparent size is nearly the same as the Sun's when
viewed from the Earth. A total solar eclipse is in fact
an occultation while an annular solar eclipse is a transit.
When observed at points in space other than from the Earth's surface,
the Sun can be eclipsed by bodies other than the Moon. Two
examples include when the crew of Apollo 12 observed the Earth to
eclipse the Sun in 1969 and when the Cassini probe observed Saturn
to eclipse the Sun in 2006.
Lunar eclipse
Main article: Lunar eclipse
Lunar eclipses occur when the Moon passes through the Earth's
shadow. This happens only during a full moon, when the Moon is on
the far side of the Earth from the Sun. Unlike a solar eclipse, an
eclipse of the Moon can be observed from nearly an entire
hemisphere. For this reason it is much more common to observe a
lunar eclipse from a given location. A lunar eclipse lasts longer, taking
several hours to complete, with totality itself usually averaging
anywhere from about 30 minutes to over an hour.
There are three types of lunar eclipses: penumbral, when the Moon
crosses only the Earth's penumbra; partial, when the Moon crosses
partially into the Earth's umbra; and total, when the Moon crosses
entirely into the Earth's umbra. Total lunar eclipses pass through all
three phases. Even during a total lunar eclipse, however, the Moon is
not completely dark. Sunlight refracted through the Earth's
atmosphere enters the umbra and provides a faint illumination. Much
as in a sunset, the atmosphere tends to more strongly scatter light
with shorter wavelengths, so the illumination of the Moon by refracted
light has a red hue, thus the phrase 'Blood Moon' is often found in
descriptions of such lunar events as far back as eclipses are recorded.
Historical record
Records of solar eclipses have been kept since ancient times. Eclipse
dates can be used for chronological dating of historical records.
A Syrian clay tablet, in the Ugaritic language, records a solar eclipse
which occurred on March 5, 1223 B.C., while Paul Griffin argues that a
stone in Ireland records an eclipse on November 30, 3340
B.C. Positing classical-era astronomers' use of Babylonian eclipse
records mostly from the 13th century BC provides a feasible and
mathematically consistent explanation for the Greek finding all three
lunar mean motions (synodic, anomalistic, draconitic) to a precision of
about one part in a million or better. Chinese historical records of solar
eclipses date back over 4,000 years and have been used to measure
changes in the Earth's rate of spin.
By the 1600s, European astronomers were publishing books with
diagrams explaining how lunar and solar eclipses occurred. In order to
disseminate this information to a broader audience and decrease fear
of the consequences of eclipses, booksellers printed broadsides
explaining the event either using the science or via astrology.

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