Original post – 03.28.2006
Brazil, Africa and western Asia will be witness to one of the most spectactular natural sights that one can see today. A total solar eclipse will be visible along a narrow track raning from Brazil’s coast to Mongolia. A partial eclispe can be seen from wide stretches across the earth. Only during totality can one observe the Sun’s solar corona and choromosphere. The streams of the corona trace the magentic pole to offer a awesome view of the Sun. These sights are normally hidden out of view by the bright light of the Sun itself. In the path of totality, darkness will occur on the landscape allowing brighter stars and planets to appear while fantastic colors rim the horizon. I remember seeing partial eclipse’s over time growing up but what an awesome sight it would be to witness totality. A Solar eclipse of the Sun is not really that rare of an event however, to actually witness totality is very different odds. In the past 25 years there have been around 16 eclipse events . The narrow path of totality is called the “umbra” and it traces out over the earths surface as the earth rotates. In terms of previous eclipses, this will last pretty long at about 4 minutes of darkness in certain areas on earth. The partial eclipse of variying extent will be visible across all Africa , parts of Europe, Middle east and Asia. NASA astronomer has a web site dedicated to the eclipse which has maps, tables and predicition details. The next total eclipse will happen in 2008. There will an awesome event in July of 2009 where most of China will be witness to at least 6 minutes of totality. Eclipses run in Saros cycles which are broken down into family cycles and Saros family 136 has produced the best eclipses for the last few centuries since all have offer 6 minute plus events. August 1,2008 totality will pass over parts of Northern Canada and July 22, 2009 totality will be close to Hawaii. If you can make it that long there will be a Saros 136 eclipse in California on August 12, 2045. In the same vain, there is much to explore on the web concerning space technology and research. Several sites always provide interesting information on what we know about space and what we are continuing to learn. If you have not checked out NASA web site for Mars Rover action – that is a must. Access the spacetoday site to read up on current missions and the Jupiter moons throught to be housing water. Nasa planets photojournal is an excellent place to check out the planets and also check out solarviews for general informaiton on planets. I recently ran across a Discovery planet Solar wind series they are doing on the “Prefect Disaster. ” The site has an excellent interactive module that shows us just how vunerable we on Earth are. The national space science and technology center has some sites packed full of information. If you need some cool wallpaper of outer space for you laptop or workstation, stop by space.com for cool space pictures. Speaking of planets, check out the new google software Google Earth to get an amazing 3D view of the entire planet. Science>Space www.spacetoday.com www.nasa.gov photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html www.dsc.discovery.com http://www.nsstc.org/ http://www.space.com/ earth.google.com
Solar Eclipse on earth - seen from space