Solar Eclipses facts

While investigating facts about Solar Eclipse and Solar Eclipses 2020, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Concorde pilots chased a solar eclipse at Mach 2. They extended it from 7 minutes to 74.

how solar eclipses occur?

The final total solar eclipse will be in 600 million years time, as the moon will be around 30,400km further from the Earth while the sun's diameter will be around 5% larger.

What occurs in both solar and lunar total eclipses?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what do solar and lunar eclipses have in common. Here are 50 of the best facts about Solar Eclipses 2019 and Solar Eclipses In The Us I managed to collect.

solar eclipse?

1. On Aug. 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will be visible across the United States. The last total solar eclipse visible from the U.S. mainland happened on Feb. 26, 1979, but this one is different. The eclipse’s ‘path of totality’ is completely within U.S. soil for the first time since 1776.

2. 563 million years from now the Earth will experience its final total solar eclipse as the moon slowly drifts away

3. On Aug 21, 2017 there will be a complete solar eclipse that will travel the length of the US continent, from Oregon to South Carolina, in 90 minutes. This route is referred to as the Path of Totality and for 2 min and 41 seconds it will seem like night in the middle of the day.

4. We're the only planet to experience total solar eclipses. And it's entirely coincidental, because the sun just happens to be 400 times larger than the moon while also being 400 times farther away. Making them appear the same size in the sky.

5. Approximately once every 18 months (on average) a total solar eclipse is visible from some place on the Earth’s surface

6. While the moon's diameter is 400 times less than that of the sun, it's also about 400 times closer to earth. That's why solar eclipses happen to work out so well on earth.

7. The Battle of the Eclipse, the last battle in a 6 year war between the Medes and the Lydians in 6th century BC, came to a sudden halt when a solar eclipse turned day into night. Both armies halted fighting and reached a peace agreement.

8. Helium is named after the greek god Helios because the first evidence of it's existence was found not on earth but in the sun during a solar eclipse in 1868. It was not formally identified on earth until 1895.

9. An American group from Harvard set out to observe the solar eclipse of Oct 27, 1780, with the Revolutionary War in full swing. Though the Brits granted them safe passage (sought in the name of science) into what was enemy territory, they still failed to witness totality due to miscalculations.

10. There is a special prayer that a Muslim is only supposed to say during a solar eclipse, as well as one during a lunar eclipse

Solar Eclipses data charts

For your convenience take a look at Solar Eclipses figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

Why solar eclipses are so rare?

You can easily fact check why solar eclipses happen by examining the linked well-known sources.

Thales of Miletus, a pre-Socratic individual credited with being the first philosopher ever, the first person to accurately predict a solar eclipse, and the first person in history to receive credit for a mathematical discovery.

In 2016 an astronomer convinced Alaska Airlines to shift a flight time 25 minutes so it would pass through the path of totality for a solar eclipse. They even washed all the windows on the right side of the plane. - source

The ancient Babylonians worked out that there are solar eclipses that occur 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours apart. This period, 223 lunar cycles, is called the Saros cycle. The 1999 eclipse and this year's eclipse are Saros cycle solar eclipses. - source

In 585 BCE, a solar eclipse in Greece ended a war between the Medes and the Lydians. Both sides saw it is as a portent, threw down their weapons, and negotiated a treaty.

Within 300-600 million years the moon will be too far away to create a total solar eclipse - source

When solar eclipses occur?

Babylonians believed that an eclipse foretold the death of their ruler, leading them to use these predictions to put kingly protections in place. During the period of time that lunar or solar eclipses might strike, the king would be replaced with a substitute.

How solar eclipses work?

The place with the longest totality in the 2017 solar eclipse, Carbondale, IL, is also where the 2024 eclipse will cross.

If you stand in any particular spot on Earth, you will experience a total solar eclipse on average about once every 375 years

Earth's crust under the Solar Eclipse of Aug 21 will rise about 40 millimeters, due to the combined gravitational force of the Sun and the Moon.

A total solar eclipse in 1925 had a path of totality that just grazed Manhattan. It was reported that residents below 96th St. could still see part of the Sun, while those above 96th were in total darkness.

Solar eclipses and lunar eclipses always come in pairs. There is always a lunar eclipse 15 days before or after a solar eclipse.

Solar eclipses infographics

Beautiful visual representation of Solar Eclipses numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.