A total solar eclipse will take place on Monday, the first in 38 years. As the moon passes in front of the sun, a shadow will be cast across all of North America. But the way that will look depends on where you are in the country.
The path of the total eclipse (when none of the sun is visible) is only 70 miles wide, so unless you’re an eclipse chaser and willing to travel, you’re more likely to see a partial eclipse.
(Note: these visualizations are inspired by the word “mooning”, which has been in use since about 1600 and means exposing to moonlight.)
If the image above looks ever so slightly imprecise, it should. Even Nasa concedes that perfectly calculating the mathematics of the eclipse is difficult because “the universe is more subtle than that”.
Nasa explains: “The earth is neither smooth nor perfectly spherical, nor does it rotate at a perfectly constant, predictable speed. The moon isn’t smooth, either, which means that the shadow it casts isn’t a simple circle. And our knowledge of the size of the sun is uncertain by a factor of about 0.2%, enough to affect the duration of totality by several seconds.”
In other words, there’s still a lot we don’t understand about our universe. Contemplate that as you enjoy Monday’s moon miracle.
