graphic illustration showing the moon’s shadows during an annular solar eclipse.
The moon’s shadows during an annular solar eclipse. (Image credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio)
Whether a solar eclipse will be total or annular depends on the current distance between Earth and the moon. The moon’s orbit of Earth is slightly elliptical, so the distance between the two changes slightly throughout the moon’s orbit.
If the moon is large enough in the sky to cover all of the sun, it causes a total solar eclipse. When that happens, it projects a very narrow shadow across Earth, creating a path of totality.
That’s not what’s occurring on Oct. 2, though, when the moon will be a little farther away in its orbit, so it won’t completely cover the sun. As seen from a roughly 165-mile-wide (266 kilometers) path across the Pacific Ocean, Patagonia (southern Chile and Argentina) and the Atlantic Ocean, the moon’s shadow will go straight across the sun’s center to create a brief ring of light dubbed a “ring of fire.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-30 14:22:00
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