Eclipse Information Page

A word of warning: Never view the sun directly with the naked eye or with any optical device, such as binoculars or a telescope! This can cause permanent eye damage or blindness. Additionally, there are no pain sensors back there so you won't even know it's happening! There are safe ways to view the sun

 

Solar Eclipse and Big Sun, Small Moon Content Training Video from our partners NISE Network on Vimeo.

The plane of the Moon's orbit around the Earth is tilted slightly with respect to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. These two planes intersect along a line called the line of nodes. A solar eclipse happens only when both the Sun and the Moon are on or very near the line of nodes. Hence, a solar eclipse in not a common event and, in particular, does not occur every month when the Moon is new. In a sense, a total solar eclipse is the newest possible new Moon!

When the line of nodes (line AB) is not directed towards the Sun, an eclipse is not possible:

But, when the line of nodes is oriented towards the Sun, an eclipse is possible:

It might be interesting to study a particular Saros cycle. Each eclipse in the cycle follows 18 years 11.3 days after the last in the cycle. Here is a list of a few of the eclipses in Saros cycle 136:

No. Date Type Totality Duration
(min:sec)
1 1360 Jun 14 Partial 0
2 1378 Jun 25 Partial 0
3 1396 Jul 05 Partial 0
4 1414 Jul 17 Partial 0
5 1432 Jul 27 Partial 0
6 1450 Aug 7 Partial 0
7 1468 Aug 18 Partial 0
8 1486 Aug 29 Partial 0
9 1504 Sep 8 annular 0:31
10 1522 Sep 19 annular 0:23
... ... ... ...
32 1919 May 29 Total 6:51
33 1937 Jun 8 Total 7:04
34 1955 Jun 20 Total 7:08
35 1973 Jun 30 Total 7:04
36 1991 Jul 11 total 6:53
37 2009 Jul 22 total 6:39
38 2027 Aug 2 total 6:23
... ... ... ...
69 2586 Jul 7 Partial 0
70 2604 Jul 19 Partial 0
71 2622 Jul 30 Partial 0

 

Multiverse skin is based on Greytness by Adammer