Eclipses

1
Eclipses

• An eclipse occurs when the shadow of one
  celestial body falls on another.
• A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth comes
  between the sun and the moon
• A solar eclipse happens when the moon comes
  between the Earth and the sun, and the shadow of
  the moon falls on part of Earth.

2
Solar Eclipses

• The moon in the sky appears to be nearly the same
  size as the sun.
• So during a solar eclipse, the disk of the moon
  almost always covers the disk of the sun.

3
Solar Eclipse

• This is an image of the suns corona during the
  February 26, 1998 eclipse in the Caribbean.
• The solar corona is visible only when the entire
  disk of the sun is blocked by the moon.

4
Lunar Eclipses

• Earths atmosphere acts like a lens and bends
  some of the sunlight into the Earths shadow, and
  the interaction of the sunlight with the
  molecules in the atmosphere filters out the blue
  light.
• With the blue part of the light removed, most of
  the remaining light that illuminates the moon is
  red.