March 3rd there was a Total Lunar Eclipse today there was a Partial Solar Eclipse, who often does this happen.
Question:
Answer:
Both solar and lunar eclipses happen when the plane of the Moon's orbit crosses the plane of the Earth's near the new or full Moon. The points where this happens are called nodes, and there are two of them, on opposite sides of the Moon's orbit. These nodal points move rather slowly, completing a cycle in around nineteen years, so if the New Moon happens near enough one node to cause a solar eclipse, either the next or previous Full Moon is apt to be close enough to the other node to produce a lunar eclipse.
Total solar eclipses are rare events. Although they occur somewhere on Earth approximately every 18 months, it has been estimated that they recur at any given place only once every 370 years, on average.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/solar_eclip...
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/upcomi...
I think the reason that they occured so close together is that any eclipse requires the 3 bodies to be in perfect alignment. This should make it more likely that then at least a partial eclipse of the opposite type should happen soon since it also requires good alignment.
if you compare the full solar eclipse dates to lunar eclipses, you will see that they are usually fairly close together (within 2 weeks)
Hi Bowler!
It happens every single time! Eclipses ALWAYS occur in pairs. It is impossible to have just one in an eclipse season.
Here's the reason. Eclipses occur during eclipse seasons, which are as much as 37 days long. There are at least two eclipse seasons a year.
Since new moons and full moons are only about 15 days apart, you can quickly see that when the first eclipse happens in the eclipse season, the moon will still not have escaped the 37-day eclipse corridor two weeks later. So there MUST be a second eclipse.
Sometimes there will be three eclipses in one season. Say there is a perfectly-aligned total lunar eclipse in the middle of the seaon. There likely will be two shallow partial solar eclipses, one a fortnight before and the other two weeks after.
Other times, you may have a total lunar eclipse followed by a total eclipse of the sun in the polar regions. Or, as in this season of March 2007, a total eclipse of the moon that's not quite dead-center, followed by a partial eclipse of the sun.
An eclipse, like happiness, is born a twin. You never have just one!
More Questions & Answers...