A highly anticipated eclipse occurring within the vicinity of a world renowned observatory is coming soon, and it’s being called the Great South American Eclipse.
On July 2, a great portion of South America will have a chance to witness the light of day fade to a night-like darkness for a couple minutes, while the moon comes before the sun.
As a lunar eclipse is akin to a perfect full moon and a solar eclipse a new moon, this will be 2019’s one and only total solar eclipse.
While the sun is almost perfectly blocked by the moon, a shadow much darker than you’d expect will be cast over the west coast country of Chile, and all the way east into Argentina. A fainter shadow of course will be visible by neighboring countries.
Here’s a guide you can follow to understand the specifics of the eclipse, and how best to appreciate it.
Studying your astrological sign can give you quite a lot of insight into your personality. You won’t believe what the science of Numerology can reveal about you as well!
That’s right, the numerology of your birth date, regardless of what month you were born, can reveal surprising information about your personality.
Click HERE to learn what Numerology says about your life using only your Name and Birth Date.
Somewhere around every 18 months but sometimes more frequently, the moon happens to conjoin the sun for a new moon, precisely at the time of year when the sun is at the moon’s north or south node (where the moon touches the belt of the ecliptic).
A region of our planet is then hit with a shadow, like a stripe being drawn across the Earth, as the moon’s shadow travels.
On that path where the moon’s shadow travels during an eclipse, people can potentially see between a few seconds or a solid several minutes of near darkness, more like twilight depending on where the viewer is located in proximity to it.
How is it even possible that the sun and moon conjoin so perfectly from Earth’s perspective? A couple other types of solar eclipse can help explain it. This is a fairly exact total eclipse, and there are also annular eclipses and partial eclipses.
What happens during a partial eclipse is the Moon doesn’t exactly pass over the Sun, but it sort of grazes a piece of it, like someone taking a bite out of a cookie.
However during an annular eclipse, not to be confused with “annual,” the moon is more distant from the Earth, which produces the shape of a ring of fire when the smaller appearing moon partially eclipses the sun.
Rather than possessing a perfectly circular orbit, the moon’s orbit is elliptical, and it has spots where it perfectly conjoins the belt of the ecliptic (north node or south node), and moments where it appears larger or smaller in the sky.
Eclipses occur when the Sun is at the spot where the moon happens to conjoin the belt of the sun each month, the moon’s north or south node, which takes about 18 years to cycle the zodiac.
Both annular eclipses and partial solar eclipses of course dramatically dampen the effect of day turning to night, the effect being only quite that intense during a total eclipse.
The path of totality is the name given to that stripe drawn across the planet by the moon’s shadow during an eclipse.
This ideal spot for viewing it is a strip of land stretching between around La Serena, Chile, and a place slightly south of the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The eclipse will be partially visible from the nearby countries of Ecuador, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
However, the majority of this eclipse will simply pass over the southern Pacific Ocean, not really reaching a lot of islands. This is a still image of a simulation, depicting where the eclipse will land.
At 9:55 p.m. Pacific Time (1655 GMT), it will first be apparent that the moon is making contact with the Sun, over the vast Pacific Ocean. Far before the moment of totality, this is the beginning of the partial phase.
The first spot that people will be able to view totality will be Oeno Island, a dot of land in the south Pacific claimed by the British. This will happen at 10:24 local time (1824 GMT).
By 4:39 p.m. local time in La Serena, Chile, totality will first hit South America. Before it reaches totality there, La Serena will be able to witness a solid partial eclipse for over an hour in preparation for the moment where day becomes night.
The table below was provided by an article, illustrating the beginning, peak, and ending times of the eclipses for a couple cities in close proximity to the path of the darkest shadow.
Some locations will only be able to see a partial eclipse, included in the table, understandable through the maximum obscuration at that place (the percent of the sun’s disk that will be blocked by the moon).
As far as other important details that eclipse viewers need to know, the main thing is we don’t know if there will be cloud cover, or clear skies until it comes closer to happening.
However, if you look at a map of what is considered average cloud coverage for the region, it would seem the condensation is typically concentrated further south than the path of the eclipse.
The skies will therefore probably be blue, if that map is any indication of where clouds usually concentrate in the region. A weather forecast was issued by the people who operate the conveniently close-by La Silla Observatory in Chile.
The European Southern Observatory suggested clear skies are more likely than cloudy, but there’s still a significant chance that clouds will be present.
They calculated that viewing from the observatory, there’s a 55% chance of partial cloud cover, a 40% chance of clear skies, and a 30% chance of thick cloud coverage capable of ruining the eclipse’s potential to be viewed.
Although it is constantly emphasized to people that staring at the Sun can damage the eyes and it can, a little common sense can go a long way when trying to view the eclipse from totality.
When the sun is completely and totally eclipsed by the moon, it was said that you can remove your glasses and look at the sun’s corona shining out from behind it quite safely: although this is the only technically safe time to look at it in such a way.
This won’t apply to most people viewing it because it’s not likely they will be in the path of totality, so make sure to wear proper eye protection and avoid damage to your vision if you can see it from nearby locations in South America.
Enjoy it to the fullest! Some would say it’s a sign of divinity, the sun and moon running on such precise cycles.
Studying your astrological sign can give you quite a lot of insight into your personality. You won’t believe what the science of Numerology can reveal about you as well!
That’s right, the numerology of your birth date, regardless of what month you were born, can reveal surprising information about your personality.
Click HERE to learn what Numerology says about your life using only your Name and Birth Date.
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A highly anticipated eclipse occurring within the vicinity of a world renowned observatory is coming soon, and it’s being called the Great South American Eclipse.
On July 2, a great portion of South America will have a chance to witness the light of day fade to a night-like darkness for a couple minutes, while the moon comes before the sun.
As a lunar eclipse is akin to a perfect full moon and a solar eclipse a new moon, this will be 2019’s one and only total solar eclipse.
While the sun is almost perfectly blocked by the moon, a shadow much darker than you’d expect will be cast over the west coast country of Chile, and all the way east into Argentina. A fainter shadow of course will be visible by neighboring countries.
Here’s a guide you can follow to understand the specifics of the eclipse, and how best to appreciate it.
Studying your astrological sign can give you quite a lot of insight into your personality. You won’t believe what the science of Numerology can reveal about you as well!
That’s right, the numerology of your birth date, regardless of what month you were born, can reveal surprising information about your personality.
Click HERE to learn what Numerology says about your life using only your Name and Birth Date.
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