Eclipse on July 22

The solar eclipse of July 22, 2009, is the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, lasting at most 6 minutes, 39 seconds. It has caused tourist interest in eastern China, Nepal and India.


The eclipse is part of saros series 136, like the record-setting solar eclipse of July 11, 1991. The next event from this series will be on August 2, 2027. The exceptional duration is a result of the moon being near perigee, with the apparent diameter of the moon 8% larger than the sun (magnitude 1.080) and the Earth being near aphelionwhere the sun appears slightly smaller.


This will be the second in the series of three eclipses in a month, with the lunar eclipse on July 7 and the lunar eclipse on August 6.


It will be visible from a narrow corridor through northern Maldives, northern Pakistan and northern India, eastern Nepal, northern Bangladesh, Bhutan, the northern tip of Myanmar, central China and the Pacific Ocean, including the Ryukyu Islands, Marshall Islands and Kiribati.


Totality will be visible in many large cities, including Surat, Vadodara, Bhopal, Varanasi, Patna, Dinajpur, Siliguri, Tawang, Guwahati, Chengdu, Nanchong, Chongqing, Yichang, Jingzhou, Wuhan, Huanggang, Hefei, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Huzhou, Suzhou, Jiaxing, Ningbo and Shanghai, as well as over the Three Gorges Dam. According to some experts, Taregana in Bihar is the “best” place to view the event.


A partial eclipse will be seen from the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbra, including most of Southeast Asia (all of India and China) and north-eastern Oceania.


This solar eclipse will be the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the 21st century, and will not be surpassed in duration until June 13, 2132. Totality will last for up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds, with the maximum eclipse occurring in the ocean at 02:35:21 UTC about 100 km south of the Bonin Islands, southeast of Japan. The uninhabited North Iwo Jima island is the landmass with totality time closest to maximum, while the closest inhabited point is Akusekijima, where the eclipse will last 6 minutes and 26 seconds.


A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Sun and the Earth so that the Sun is fully or partially covered. This can only happen during a new moon, when the Sun and Moon are in conjunction as seen from the Earth. At least two and up to five solar eclipses can occur each year on Earth, with between zero and two of them being total eclipses. Total solar eclipses are nevertheless rare at any location because during each eclipse totality exists only along a narrow corridor in the relatively tiny area of the Moon’s umbra.


A total solar eclipse is a spectacular natural phenomenon and many people travel to remote locations to observe one. The 1999 total eclipse in Europe helped to increase public awareness of the phenomenon, as illustrated by the number of journeys made specifically to witness the 2005 annular eclipse and the 2006 total eclipse. The recent solar eclipse of January 26, 2009 was an annular eclipse (see below), while the solar eclipse of July 22, 2009 was a total solar eclipse.


In ancient times, and in some cultures today, solar eclipses have been attributed to supernatural causes. Total solar eclipses can be frightening for people who are unaware of their astronomical explanation, as the Sun seems to disappear in the middle of the day and the sky darkens in a matter of minutes.


The Moon transiting in front of the Sun as seen from STEREO-B on February, 25 2007 at 4.4 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is an ellipse, as is the Earth’s orbit around the Sun; the apparent sizes of the Sun and Moon therefore vary. The magnitude of an eclipse is the ratio of the apparent size of the Moon to the apparent size of the Sun during an eclipse. An eclipse when the Moon is near its closest distance from the Earth (i.e., near its perigee) can be a total eclipse because the Moon will appear to be large enough to cover completely the Sun’s bright disk, or photosphere; a total eclipse has a magnitude greater than 1. Conversely, an eclipse when the Moon is near its farthest distance from the Earth (i.e., near its apogee) can only be an annular eclipse because the Moon will appear to be slightly smaller than the Sun; the magnitude of an annular eclipse is less than 1. Slightly more solar eclipses are annular than total because, on average, the Moon lies too far from Earth to cover the Sun completely. A hybrid eclipse occurs when the magnitude of an eclipse transitions during the event from smaller than one to larger than one—or vice versa—so the eclipse appears to be total at some locations on Earth and annular at other locations.


The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is also elliptical, so the Earth’s distance from the Sun varies throughout the year. This also affects the apparent sizes of the Sun and Moon, but not so much as the Moon’s varying distance from the Earth. When the Earth approaches its farthest distance from the Sun (the aphelion) in July, this tends to favor a total eclipse. As the Earth approaches its closest distance from the Sun (the perihelion) in January, this tends to favor an annular eclipse.


Post By: VictoriaClassic