What is the closest time to the solar eclipse that a lunar eclipse could occur?
Question:
Answer:
2 weeks with a good luck
Hi. The time it takes for 1/2 an orbit of the moon, about 14 days.
Good Question, Partial eclipses would have to be calculated. I looked in one of my books and have no idea. If you mean full eclipses then calculated the new moon for a solar eclipce and full moon luna eclipse than 14 days.
Solar and Lunar eclipses both need the Sun, Earth and Moon to be in a straight line. This only happens when the Moon is passing through the plane of the Earth's orbit. This year, that lineup is in March and September. The alignments are a little short of 6 months apart so the date comes earlier year by year. This is due to the precession of the Moon's orbit on its 18 year cycle. When the lineup does occur, there is usually a Lunar or Solar eclipse and often both. As several answers said above, the two events must be around 14.5 days apart which is a half orbit of the Moon relative tot he Sun.
Because of this, it is not all that unlikely for a Lunar and Solar eclipse to be only 1/2 Moon orbit apart. In fact, next year there is a Lunar eclipse on March 3 and a Solar eclipse on March 18. The following year there is a Solar eclipse on February 6 and a Lunar eclipse on February 20 and another Solar/Lunar on July 31 and August 16.
14/15 days
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