While you could see the sun blocked by a moon from another planet in our solar system, it would not have the same impact as one from our own earth. This is because our moon and the sun appear to be almost exactly the same size in the sky, thereby showing off the sun's corona while still covering the photosphere in the process. Other moons would appear to be too small to cover the sun (therefore, no total eclipse), while other moons would look much larger in size compared to the sun, so the beauty of the inner corona would be lost. This is one of the most amazing coincidences in all of nature, if you ask me. This is why I travel to see total solar eclipses! Charles Fulco

Hi Nate

There may not be any other planets in our solar system that would have quite the same sort of solar eclipse that we see from Earth. The neat thing about our solar eclipses is that the apparent sizes of the Sun and Moon are almost the same. That means that the Moon can almost exactly cover the Sun, so that we can't see the Sun's bright surface, but we can see the Sun's corona. If the moon were much smaller or farther from the Earth, we would just see a transit, in which a dark circle goes across the face of the Sun. Or if the Moon were bigger or closer it would completely cover the Sun and it would just get dark. so we are really in a "just right" sort of situation that doesn't exist many other places.

If a "just right" situation did occur further from the Sun I think the main difference would just be that the Sun would be fainter because it is farther away.

Because it is kind of neat I'll include a link from of a movie from the STEREO-B spacecraft of a solar eclipse in which the spacecraft was four or five times farther away from the Moon than the Earth is. You can see that makes the Moon seem smaller. The Sun looks odd because it is an image of the Sun in ultraviolet light. http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.g.../transit022507.shtml

Hello Nate,

That is a very interesting question.

Here on Earth, a solar eclipse happens when our Moon passes in front of the Sun. Luckily for us, the angular or apparent size of our Moon in the sky is about the same as the angular or apparent size as the Sun. This means that the Moon can sometimes completely block out the Sun in the sky, creating a total solar eclipse. Because the Moon's distance from Earth varies along its orbit, sometimes the angular size of the Moon is actually a little bit smaller than the Sun's angular size, so a ring-shaped section of the Sun is still visible during the eclipse. We call this an annular eclipse. We can also have partial solar eclipses, where only a portion of the Sun is blocked by the Moon.

If you were on another planet in the solar system, the type of solar eclipse you could see would depend upon the Sun's angular or apparent size in the sky, the angular or apparent size of the moon (or other object) passing in front of the Sun, and the relative orbital alignments of the Sun and the object causing the eclipse. If the apparent size of the object that passes in front of the Sun is a lot smaller than the apparent size of the Sun, scientists actually would say that a transit had occurred instead of an eclipse.

The Mars rovers have taken some pictures of eclipses, or more accurately "transits" of Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos across the Sun. For more information, you can visit this web site: http://marsrovers.jpl.nas...unity/20040308a.html

The angular sizes of Mars' tiny moons are so small that they can never entirely block out the Sun for an observer on the surface of Mars, so solar "eclipses" on Mars are more properly called "transits." Scientists can learn a lot by studying eclipses on other planets. By carefully studying the timing of the transits of Phobos and Deimos across the Sun observed by the Mars rovers, improved our knowledge of the orbits of Phobos and Deimos. Scientists also used the shape of the shadows cast by Phobos and Deimos to learn more about how these two small moons are shaped.

Kris