Get ready for what some are calling the Great American Eclipse: for the first time in decades, Americans will have a chance to see a total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017.
HOW TO WATCH IT
To see the solar eclipse personally, all you have to do is travel to the places where it is expected to be viewable. So, just go to any of the places in the eclipse’s predicted path. For details about what states you can see the eclipse in, check out the Great American Eclipse website. Its shadow will travel through all of these places at 2,400 miles per hour, so don’t waste any time!
WHAT IS A TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE?
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon obscures the sun; a total solar eclipse occurs when the sun is totally obscured by the moon. During the total eclipse, the sun’s beautiful corona layer becomes visible. It does not happen whenever the moon is in its new moon position where it is between the Earth and the sun, but when it is in the perigee position.
As Jim Algar of Tech Times pointed out, the event itself is not uncommon, occurring about once every eighteen months, but often in remote parts of the Earth. Some “eclipse chasers” traveled to Easter Island in 2010 to view one; earlier this year, a total solar eclipse that was viewable in Norway’s Svalbard Islands attracted visitors to the spot in the North Atlantic.
THE ECLIPSE’S UNPRECEDENTED VISIBILITY
Often, the only people that get to see them are professionals who travel to the sites to study the phenomena, rather than regular observers. 12 million people live in the areas that the August 2017 eclipse will be visible to, which is partially why the Great American Eclipse will be such a remarkable event. Another reason is that it is thought by scientists that total solar eclipses are viewable in the same spot only once in every 375 years.
MORE ON TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSES
Check out this infographic made by Space.com that visualizes solar eclipse to learn more about eclipses in general, as well as NASA’s page on the Great American Eclipse. Be sure to remember the date if you live in any of the states it will be visible to!
(PHOTO SOURCE: ©bigstockphoto.com/JohanSwanepoel)
