What Causes A Solar Eclipse And Why Are They So Rare

In a total solar eclipse the moon completely covers the sun.

What causes a solar eclipse and why are they so rare.

They won t show up just because solar eclipses are extremely beautiful. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes completely in front of the sun and creates a shadow that darkens a portion of the earth. In a solar eclipse the moon passes between earth and the sun and stops some or all of the sun s light from reaching earth. The millions of people who are expected to witness the astronomical event won t show up just because solar eclipses are exceedingly beautiful they re also exceedingly rare.

In a partial solar eclipse the sun is partly covered when the moon passes in front of it. So solar eclipses could happen once a month. They occur when the same eclipse changes from an annular to a total solar eclipse and or vice versa along the eclipse s path. 21 will attract a huge audience and rightly so.

Here s why a total solar eclipse occurs on a given spot on the planet only once every 375 years. 21 2017 is an exceedingly rare event. Such alignment coincides with a new moon indicating the moon is closest to the ecliptic plane in a total eclipse the disk of the sun is fully obscured by the moon. They occur roughly once every year or two somewhere on earth.

They are also very rare. Looked at another way total solar eclipses aren t rare. This occurs when the sun moon and earth are aligned. But any given spot on our planet s surface gets darkened by the moon s shadow on average only once about every 400 years so in that sense totality is indeed rare cosmic coincidence.

There are three kinds of solar eclipses. The moon takes about one month to fully orbit the earth. Solar eclipses mainly look partial solar eclipses are only visible from within the area on earth where the moon s shadow falls and the closer you are to the center of the shadow s path the bigger the eclipse looks. In partial and annular eclipses only part.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes completely in front of the sun casting.