Circle Of Darkness:Earths Eclipse

Twice a year, though, there is a period where the moon and the sun line up with Earth — astronomers call this an eclipse season. It lasts about 34 days, long enough for the moon to complete a full orbit and then some of the Earth. During each eclipse season, there are at least two eclipses visible from some parts of the Earth.

At the full moon, there will be a lunar eclipse, when the moon passes directly behind the Earth, resulting in a darker, reddish-colored moon. And at the new moon, there will be a solar eclipse, when the sun is blocked by the moon.

The Conversation

Can we learn anything from eclipse events, or are they really just oddities that happen in nature? We can definitely learn things from eclipses. When the moon blocks the sun, we can see the corona, the famous visual of the halo of light around the dark disk of the moon. Currently astronomers study this by creating an artificial eclipse with a mask built into special instruments on telescopes called coronagraphs. Eclipses give scientists opportunities to get more data to study the corona in depth. We can also learn about Earth itself. In an area affected by an eclipse, the darkening of the sun leads to a sudden drop in temperature.

NASA-funded studies during this eclipse will look at the effects from the eclipse on our atmosphere as well as what happens on land. Previous studies observed animal behavior during an eclipse in and noted some animals went through their night routines as the sun disappeared while others became nervous. And we can learn about the whole universe. Less than years ago, an eclipse proved a prediction Albert Einstein had made about gravity.

That success helped make him a household name. In his general theory of relativity , Einstein had predicted that gravity could bend the path of light.

The effect he predicted was very slight, so it would best be viewed as the light passed a very large celestial body as part of its travels across a very long distance of space. He then compared those positions to their known positions at night. This eclipse, the Moon only flirts with the umbra.

See a flirtatious lunar eclipse this Friday night

Sun — Earth — Moon in a straight line in that order. Instead, the moon typically passes a little above or below north or south of the small, circle-shaped shadow cast by our planet, and no eclipse occurs. Or it clips the outer edge of the shadow and we see — you guessed it — a penumbral eclipse. I should mention here that the event is also visible from Europe, Africa, S. America and much of Asia.

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UT Maximum eclipse moon deepest in shadow: Instead, give it an hour or so when the Moon is maximally in shadow from 6 to 7: What's more, this Friday's eclipse happens during convenient, early-evening viewing hours. No getting up in the raw hours before dawn. During a partial or total lunar eclipse , the full moon passes first through the Earth's outer shadow, called the penumbra, before entering the dark, interior shadow or umbra. The penumbra is nowhere near as dark as the inner shadow because varying amounts of direct sunlight filter into it, diluting its duskiness.

As you look past the Earth toward the sun, you would see the sun gradually covered or eclipsed by the Earth. Less sunlight would be available to illuminate the moon, so your friends back on Earth would notice a gradual dimming of the moon, very subtle at first but becoming more noticeable as the eclipse progressed. As the moon's leading edge approached the penumbra-umbra border, the sun would narrow to a glaring sliver along Earth's limb for our lucky lunar observer.

Back on Earth, we'd notice that the part of the moon closest to the umbra looked strangely gray and dusky, but the entire lunar disk would still be plainly visible.

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That's what we'll see during Friday's eclipse. The moon will slide right up to the umbra and then roll by, never dipping its toes in its dark waters. During a partial eclipse , the moon keeps going into the umbra, where the sun is completely blocked from view save for dash of red light refracted by the Earth's atmosphere into what would otherwise be an inky black shadow. This eclipse, the moon only flirts with the umbra.

See a flirtatious lunar eclipse this Friday night

Instead, the moon typically passes a little above or below north or south of the small, circle-shaped shadow cast by our planet, and no eclipse occurs. Or it clips the outer edge of the shadow and we see—you guessed it—a penumbral eclipse. Earth's shadow varies in size depending where you are in it.

Standing on the ground during twilight, it can grow to cover the entire sky, but at the moon's distance of , miles, the combined penumbra and umbra span just 2. Because the moon travels right up to the umbra during Friday's eclipse, it will be well worth watching.