How Eclipses of the Sun Happen

In its 27 – day Orbit of the Earth, the Moon sometimes passes directly in front of the Sun and we see a solar eclipse. In one of the natural world’s most eerie, beautiful spectacles, the dark circle of the Moon gradually creeps over the Sun.

Between two and five solar eclipses are visible from somewhere on the Earth each year.

When the Moon is at its farthest from the Earth, it is not big enough in the sky to cover the Sun completely during an eclipse. Instead of a total eclipse, an annular eclipse occurs. When the Moon is exactly in front of the Sun, a bright ring of the Sun’s photosphere is still visible around the edge of the Moon.

Related posts:

Variable Stars and What They are
These maps show stars visible all year in the northern and southern hemispheres. They also mark the position of interesting objects, such as star clusters and galaxies. To see what is visible, face north in the northern hemisphere and south in the southern hemisphere. The Variable stars contains pulsating variables, the eclipsing variables and the rotating variables. Toward the end of their...
The Sun Explained: Inside and Out
The Sun is the star at the focal point of the Earth's planetary group. It's just about splendidly round and comprises of blazing plasma entwined with attractive fields. It has a breadth of about 1,392,684 km, in the ballpark of 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (about 2×1030 kilograms, 330,000 times that of Earth) explains about 99.86% of the sum mass of the Sun oriented System. Synthet...
Exploring the Planets
A planetary spacecraft has basic instruction programmed into its onboard computers at launch. However, most of the details are sent by controllers on Earth at a later stage, because journeys are often several years long. After discovering a problem with the radio transmissions between Cassini and Huygens, mission controllers were able to change their plans.
Mars World Map
In 1659 Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens, using an early telescope, drew the first sketch of a surface feature on Mars, a dark patch know today as Syrtis Major. More than three centuries later the mars global Surveyor is charting the entire planet. Data beamed from the orbiting surveyor have rendered a detailed and true-color map of this seemingly most Earthlike of planets.
List of All Space Missions to Different Planets and Beyond
Space examination or the Space missions is the disclosure and examination of space by system for space mechanics. Physical examination of space is administered both by human spaceflights and by robotic shuttle. While the observation of articles in space, rumoured to be Astro science, starts before reliable recorded history, it was the development of unbelievable and similarly profit...
Astrology Star Chart Fall
A star chart or star map is a map of the night sky. Astronomers divide these into grids to use them more easily. They are used to identify and locate astronomical objects such as stars, constellations and galaxies. They have been used for human navigation since time immemorial.
An Internal View of the Saturn V
When the American Space program finally achieved a Moon landing on July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 spacecraft was launched by a powerful rocked called Saturn V. The most powerful rocker ever, Saturn V was used to launch all the Apollo Spacecraft on lunar missions.
Is There an Edge of the Universe?
The “dark flow” of wayward galaxy clusters that appear to be pulled in one direction could give us our first hint of something beyond the cosmic horizon, which normally marks the limit of the observable universe.
Fun Facts About the Space Shuttle
Finding out the length of an orbit is a very tedious task. Unless one have flown aboard the space shuttle or have seen it in person, it can be difficult to mentally visualize the size of the vehicle. Here, we measure the orbiter against a familiar object, a school bus. The weight of Orbiter would weight around 178000 pounds. The heaviest African Elephant weighs 13200 pounds. It would take appro...
Understanding Blackholes
The Sonoma State University NASA Education and Public Outreach group, in collaboration with several other people, has created a series of formal and informal education and outreach products based on the science of black holes. The formal products – which include an educator’s guide with activities and in online resource are closely tied to the informal products, which include a planetarium show, a...
Blankets of Time Peroid of the Earth
The geologic time scale blankets the degree of the being of Earth, from around the range of 4600 million years in the past to the present day. It's stamped by Worldwide Limit Stereotype Areas and Indicates. Geologic time units are (in place of slipping specificity) ages, times, periods, ages, and develops; and the relating chronostratigraphic units, which measure "shake-time", are endotherms, eryt...
Comet Explanation
Astronomers expect spectacular displays of meteor showers over North America and Europe on Wednesday and Thursday as the Earth crosses the path of Comet Swift-Tuttle’s Orbit. The comet you see from your eye is actually the icy dust from the comet burning off as it nears our Sun.
The Planets Interiors
Earth and the different several internal planets of our earth's planetary group (Mercury, Venus and Scratches) are causing of rock, to be containing regular minerals like feldspars and metals like magnesium and aluminum. So is Pluto. The different planets are not unyielding. Jupiter, case in point, is made up generally of trapped helium, hydrogen, and water. In our earth's planetary group, the...
Mercury Explained: Inside and Out
Mercury is the deepest planet in the Earth's planetary group. It's additionally the most diminutive, and its circle is the most unconventional (that is, the slightest splendidly roundabout) of the eight planets. It circles the Sun once in the vicinity of 88 Earth days, finishing several revolutions about its hub for each two circles. The planet is named following the Roman god Mercury, the det...
Dwarf Planets Explained
After Pluto was discovered in 1930, it was regarded as the ninth major planet, although it was soon found to be very different from the others. It is smaller than Earth’s Moon and follows an elongated, titled orbit. In the 1990’s astronomers began to discover small bodies similar to Pluto beyond Neptune. Some, such as Eris, were larger then Pluto. In 2006, astronomers decided to define a ne...
The Birth of a Solar System
Most astronomers believe that all the members of the solar system, from the giant Sun to the smallest asteroid, were born out of a vast, spinning cloud of gas and dust – the solar nebula. The process began 5 billion years ago with the formation of the Sun. The planets and other objects formed from unused material. When the solar system was nearly complete, 500 million years later, just 0....
Nearside of the Moon
The dominant features on the Moon’s nearside – the side that always faces the Earth – are the dark maria, which early astronomers thought were seas. These lava – filled basis formed when molten rock seeped through the Moon’s crust to fill depressions left by meteorite impacts.
Driving Force That Drives Galaxies Apart
The universe is expanding at an ever – increasing rate, with something that astronomers call dark energy appearing to push it apart faster than gravity can pull it together. Type la supernovas are stars that explodes with a predictable brightness. Light from distant supernovas locks dimmer and redder than expected, implying that the universe is expanding. The more distant the star, the fast...