Types of Eclipse and Transits:

Eclipses and transits are astronomical events where a celestial body partially or totally covers another celestial object

A solar eclipse happens when the New Moon moves between Earth and the Sun while a lunar eclipse occurs when Earth casts a shadow on the Full Moon.

If a planet comes between Earth and the Sun, and is visible as a black dot against the Sun, it is called a planet transit.

Types of Eclipses

From Earth, we can see 2 types of eclipses – eclipses of the Sun (solar eclipses), and eclipses of the Moon (lunar eclipses). These occur when the Sun, Earth, and the Moon align in a straight or almost straight configuration. Astronomers call this a syzygy, from the ancient Greek word syzygia, meaning to be yoked together or conjoined.

The term eclipse also finds its roots in ancient Greek – it comes from the word ékleipsis, meaning to fail or to abandon.

Eclipses, solar and lunar, have fascinated scientists and lay people for centuries. In ancient times, eclipses were seen as phenomena to be feared – many cultures came up with stories and myths to explain the temporary darkening of the Sun or the Moon. In recent centuries, eclipses have been sought after by scientists and astronomers who use the events to study and examine our natural world.

Solar Eclipses

Solar eclipses can only occur during a New Moon when the Moon moves between Earth and the Sun and the 3 celestial bodies form a straight line: Earth–Moon–Sun.

There are between 2 and 5 solar eclipses every year.

There are 3 kinds of solar eclipses: total, partial, and annular. There is also a rare hybrid that is a combination of an annular and a total eclipse.

Total Solar Eclipses

A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon completely covers the Sun, as seen from Earth. Totality during such an eclipse can only be seen from a limited area, shaped like a narrow belt, usually about 160 km (100 mi) wide and 16,000 km (10,000 mi) long. Areas outside this track may be able to see a partial eclipse of the Sun.

Looking at a solar eclipse without any protective eyewear can severely harm your eyes. The only way to safely watch a solar eclipse is to wear protective eclipse glasses or to project an image of the eclipsed Sun using a DIY Pinhole Projector.

Partial Solar Eclipses

A partial solar eclipse happens when the Moon only partially covers the disk of the Sun.

Annular Solar Eclipses

An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon appears smaller than the Sun as it passes centrally across the solar disk and a bright ring, or annulus, of sunlight remains visible during the eclipse.

Hybrid Solar Eclipses

A hybrid solar eclipse is a rare form of solar eclipse, which changes from an annular to a total solar eclipse, and vice versa, along its path.

Lunar Eclipses

The Moon does not have its own light. It shines because its surface reflects the Sun’s rays. A lunar eclipse occurs when Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon and blocks the Sun’s rays from directly reaching the Moon. Lunar eclipses only happen at Full Moon.

There are 3 kinds of lunar eclipses: total, partial, and penumbral.

Total Lunar Eclipses

A total lunar eclipse occurs when Earth’s umbra – the central, dark part of its shadow – obscures all of the Moon’s surface.

Partial Lunar Eclipses

A partial lunar eclipse can be observed when only part of the Moon’s surface is obscured by Earth’s umbra.

Penumbral Lunar Eclipses

A penumbral lunar eclipse happens when the Moon travels through the faint penumbral portion of Earth’s shadow.

Planet Transits

When a planet comes between Earth and the Sun, it is called a transit. The only 2 planets that can be seen transiting the Sun from Earth are Venus and Mercury because they are the only planets which orbit inside Earth’s orbit.

From 2000–2199, there will be 14 transits of Mercury. However, Venus transits are even rarer with only 2 this century, in 2004 and 2012.

Team Work - Meaning and Tips for better Team Work

A single brain is not always capable of making key decisions on its own. To come up with an efficient solution, an individual requires the help and advice of others. A team is established when individuals get together on a common platform with the common goal of completing a task. To guarantee optimum compatibility, team members should ideally come from similar backgrounds and have a single aim. To provide their best, the team members must complement each other and function as a single unit in tight cooperation. "There is no I in Team Work," as the saying goes, and each member must put the needs of his team first. Personal interests must take a second seat. Any team's performance is directly proportionate to the relationship between its members and their combined efforts. What is the definition of teamwork? Teamwork is defined as the sum of each team member's efforts toward the fulfilment of the team's goal. In other words, any team's backbone is its ability t

Scientists discover a new theory / The fundamental property of light – 150 years after Maxwell

Light plays a vital role in our everyday lives and technologies based on light are all around us. So we might expect that our understanding of light is pretty settled. But scientists have just uncovered a new fundamental property of light that gives new insight into the 150-year-old classical theory of electromagnetism and which could lead to applications manipulating light at the nanoscale. It is unusual for a pure-theory physics paper to make it into the journal Science. So when one does, it’s worth a closer look. In the new study, researchers bring together one of physics' most venerable set of equations – those of James Clerk’s Maxwell’s famous theory of light – with one of the hot topics in modern solid-state physics: the quantum spin Hall effect and topological insulators . To understand what the fuss is about, let’s first consider the behaviour of electrons in the quantum spin Hall effect. Electrons possess an intrinsic spin as if they were tiny spinning-tops,

19 Types Of Content Writing Services For Your Business

It’s hard to know which type of content writing service is the best for your business. There are so many different types of content writing services out there that it’s easy to get confused. You end up wondering if you’re choosing the right one for you. In this post, we’ll get rid of this confusion, once and for all. I’m going to list out the different kinds of writing services you could use. By the end of this article, you’ll know whether you need a copywriter, a content writer, or a social media marketer and how they can help you achieve your business goals. This post is also useful for writers who want to hone their writing skills in a specific area. Let’s dive in and learn what types of content writing services exist and when you should use them. (Bonus – if you want to hire the top 1% of writers, go to the bottom to learn how). Types of Content Writing Services As we go through the list of content writing services, you will find that many of them overlap. That’s perfectly

The LimitlessX - Get Tech Science News around the Globe

Search This Blog