98 Fun Facts About Eclipse

The Sun is both wider than the Moon and farther from Earth by roughly what factor?

About 400: the two ratios match, so both discs span about half a degree in our sky and the Moon can just cover the Sun.

At most, roughly how long can totality during a solar eclipse last at one spot?

About 7 minutes: the Moon's shadow races across Earth at over 1,000 mph, so no single spot stays in darkness for long.

In which kind of solar eclipse does the Moon appear too small to cover the Sun, leaving a bright ring?

Annular: because a bright ring of the Sun stays uncovered, it is never safe to look at without eye protection, even at its peak.

What is the name of the dark central part of the Moon's shadow, inside which a total eclipse is seen?

Umbra: where it touches Earth, its path is only about 100 miles wide, and anyone just outside it sees merely a partial eclipse.

Which part of the Sun becomes visible to the naked eye only during a total eclipse?

The corona: this outer atmosphere tops a million degrees, yet it is far fainter than the Sun's face, which normally drowns it out.

How often, on average, does a total solar eclipse happen somewhere on Earth?

Every 18 months: yet the shadow's path is so narrow that any one town usually waits centuries for its next total eclipse.

Which element was first spotted in the Sun's light during an 1868 eclipse, years before it was found on Earth?

Helium: its bright yellow line in the Sun's spectrum matched no known element, and William Ramsay didn't identify it on Earth until 1895.

What is the name of the roughly 18-year cycle after which a near-identical eclipse repeats?

Saros: each cycle runs about 8 hours past a whole number of days, so Earth turns a third further and the repeat eclipse lands about 120 degrees west.

What are Baily's beads, seen around totality?

Sunlight shining through valleys on the Moon's edge makes the beads, and when the last one winks out, totality begins.

Which astronomer made the first recorded observation of Baily's beads, during the eclipse of 3 May 1715?

Edmond Halley is best known for predicting that the comet seen in 1682 would return in 1758, as it did, years after his death.

Which theory did Arthur Eddington's observations of the total eclipse of May 29, 1919 help confirm?

General relativity: the Sun's gravity shifted the apparent positions of background stars as Einstein predicted, and the result made him a global celebrity.

Per Herodotus, a 585 BC eclipse halted a battle between the Medes and which other people?

The Lydians: when day suddenly turned to night mid-battle, both armies stopped fighting and were eager to make peace.

A clay tablet recording an early solar eclipse was found at Ugarit, in which modern country?

Syria: the Ugarit tablet says the Sun went down in daytime with Mars in view, a sign the sky truly went dark in a total eclipse.

Why will total solar eclipses eventually stop happening?

The Moon is slowly drifting farther away, roughly 4 cm a year, so in hundreds of millions of years it will look too small to cover the Sun.

When is it safe to look at a solar eclipse without a certified solar filter?

Only during totality: once the Moon hides the whole Sun you may look, but glasses go back on the moment any bright sliver reappears.

At which lunar phase can a lunar eclipse occur?

Earth has to sit between the Sun and Moon, and that only happens at full moon during an eclipse season.

Why does a totally eclipsed Moon look red?

Sunlight is refracted through Earth's atmosphere, which filters out blue light, so the Moon glows with every sunrise and sunset on Earth at once.

Why does lunar totality last far longer than solar totality?

Earth's shadow is much wider than the Moon's, so the Moon can spend well over an hour crossing its core, while the Moon's own small shadow sweeps past any one spot in minutes.

Do you need eye protection to watch a lunar eclipse?

No, it is safe to look directly: you are seeing the dimmed Moon, not the Sun, so binoculars and telescopes are fine too.

Which five-step scale, from L=0 to L=4, rates how dark a total lunar eclipse looks?

Danjon scale: after big volcanic eruptions fill the air with ash, eclipses tend to land at its dark end, with the Moon nearly vanishing.

What is a selenelion?

Seeing the Sun and eclipsed Moon at once: it happens just after sunrise or before sunset, and a mountaintop view of both horizons helps.

In one Inca myth, which animal attacked and ate the Moon during a lunar eclipse?

A jaguar: to drive it off before it leapt down to eat people, the Inca shook spears at the Moon and beat their dogs to make them howl.

In a Chinese legend, what happened to astronomers Hsi and Ho after they failed to predict an eclipse?

They were executed, the story goes, for being too drunk to warn the emperor, though historians suspect the tale is invented.

On which island did Columbus use a predicted lunar eclipse in 1504 to frighten locals into feeding his crew?

Jamaica: stranded there with his ships beached, he warned that an angry God would darken the Moon, and when it did, the locals resumed supplying food.

The Dresden Codex, a bark-paper book full of eclipse tables, was made by which people?

The Maya: its tables tracked when eclipses could occur, and some scholars argue they even point to the July 1991 eclipse over Mexico.

Near which Illinois city did the 2017 eclipse reach its longest totality, about 2 minutes 41 seconds?

Carbondale scored again in 2024, sitting near the crossing point of both eclipse paths.

Where did the 2017 path of totality leave the US mainland?

South Carolina: the shadow crossed the whole country from the Pacific in about an hour and a half, leaving land near Charleston.

Which Pacific beach city was the first place on mainland Mexico to see totality in April 2024?

Mazatlán: the Moon's shadow came ashore there from the Pacific, then raced northeast across Texas and on toward eastern Canada.

After 2024, roughly how long must the contiguous US wait for its next total solar eclipse?

About 20 years: the August 2044 eclipse only clips Montana and the Dakotas, but a coast-to-coast one from California to Florida follows a year later.

Aboard which aircraft did scientists extend their view of a 1973 eclipse's totality to over 74 minutes over Africa?

Concorde: the prototype flew at over twice the speed of sound to keep pace with the Moon's shadow, peering up through portholes cut into its roof.

What name is given to the last brilliant flash of light beside the dark Moon just before totality?

The diamond ring: keep eclipse glasses on, because a sliver of the Sun's bright surface is still showing.

In which Mark Twain novel does a man escape being burned at the stake by claiming to cause a solar eclipse?

A Connecticut Yankee: Hank convinces the terrified court that he caused it, then bargains for his release and a post as the king's perpetual minister.

Which ancient Greek device, recovered from a shipwreck in 1901, could predict eclipses?

The Antikythera mechanism: X-ray scans of its corroded bronze gears revealed dials that forecast solar and lunar eclipses using Babylonian cycles.

Why can far more people see a given lunar eclipse than a total solar eclipse?

Earth's whole night side sees it, while a total solar eclipse is seen only along a narrow path and returns to any one spot only every few centuries.

Who directed The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the 2010 third film in the vampire series?

David Slade: Chris Weitz was still in post-production on New Moon when Eclipse had to start shooting, so the studio brought in a new director.

Who wrote and produced Bonnie Tyler's 1983 hit 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'?

Jim Steinman: he later said he began it as a vampire love song for a Nosferatu musical, and he reused it in his stage show Dance of the Vampires.

In which Stephen King novel does a woman kill her abusive husband during the 1963 total solar eclipse?

Dolores Claiborne: while the island watches the eclipse, she lures Joe into a dry well, and 30 years later she confesses it while suspected of another death.

Which enslaved man in Virginia took the solar eclipse of February 1831 as a sign to start planning a revolt?

Nat Turner: he took it as the sign he had been promised and told four trusted men his plan, then a second sign in August launched the uprising.

Which singer's 1972 hit mocks a man who flew his own jet to Nova Scotia to see a total solar eclipse?

Carly Simon: after over 40 years of secrecy, she confirmed in 2015 that one verse is about Warren Beatty, while the rest refer to two other men.

Which inventor took a heat-sensing device he designed, the tasimeter, to the Rockies for the 1878 total solar eclipse?

Thomas Edison: he later admitted it was far too sensitive to give results, and the unstable device was soon abandoned without a patent.

Which Chinese megacity lay in the path of totality during July 2009's record-long total solar eclipse?

Shanghai: heavy rain hid the Sun from the crowds, yet the city still went dark, and its lights switched off again as daylight returned.

The 1999 total eclipse, the UK's first since 1927, crossed Devon and which other county?

Dense populations along the path through Europe and South Asia made it one of the most-viewed eclipses in history, though cloud spoiled much of Western Europe's view.

Roughly how often does an 'eclipse season', the window when eclipses can happen, come round?

Every six months: each season lasts about 35 days, long enough that every year brings at least two solar eclipses somewhere on Earth.

Why isn't there a solar eclipse at every new moon?

Its orbit is tilted about 5 degrees, so at most new moons the Moon's shadow passes above or below Earth instead of falling on it.

'Eclipse' is the closing track of which 1973 Pink Floyd album?

The Dark Side of the Moon: the album ends as it began, with a fading heartbeat that is really a specially treated bass drum.

Per Herodotus, which Greek philosopher predicted the eclipse that halted a 585 BC battle?

Thales: Herodotus says he named only the year it would happen, and how he could have predicted even that is still uncertain.

During a partial eclipse, why does the shade under a tree fill with tiny crescents?

Leaf gaps act as pinholes, each projecting an image of the crescent Sun, so hold up a kitchen colander to cast dozens of your own.

Which part of the contiguous US did the total solar eclipse of February 1979 cross?

The Northwest: thousands of eclipse chasers packed little Goldendale, Washington, where the hilltop public observatory served as the Astronomical League's headquarters for the event.

Which comic-book reporter escapes an Inca execution pyre by choosing an hour that coincides with a solar eclipse?

Tintin pulls the trick in Prisoners of the Sun, play-acting that he commands the Sun. Hergé later judged the scene implausible, since sun-worshipping Incas would have understood eclipses.

Which baseball team ended an 86-year title drought on a night when a lunar eclipse hung over the World Series?

Boston Red Sox players sealed their 2004 sweep of the Cardinals under the first lunar eclipse ever to take place during a World Series game, ending the so-called Curse of the Bambino.

Eclipse, an unbeaten 18th-century English champion born during the solar eclipse of 1764, was what kind of animal?

A racehorse who never lost in 18 starts, Eclipse was foaled during the eclipse of 1 April 1764 and named after it. Mitsubishi later borrowed his name for a sports car.

The total solar eclipse of January 1925 famously split which city, with totality uptown but a partial view downtown?

New York saw the edge of the Moon's shadow fall across Manhattan: people north of 96th Street were reported to get a total eclipse and those south of it a partial one.

How did astronomer Pierre Janssen escape the besieged city of Paris in 1870 to reach a solar eclipse in Algeria?

By balloon was his way out of the Siege of Paris. Janssen was a tireless eclipse chaser whose other expeditions took him to Italy, India, Siam and the Caroline Islands.

In which musical does a florist's assistant find a strange flytrap-like plant just after a sudden eclipse of the Sun?

Little Shop of Horrors has Seymour discover the plant, which he names Audrey II, moments after the eclipse. It soon turns out to thrive on human blood.

In which direction does the Moon's shadow normally sweep across Earth's surface during a total solar eclipse?

West to east is the usual track, the reverse of the Sun's daily drift across the sky, because the Moon orbits eastward faster than Earth's surface spins beneath it.

During totality, which glow appears low in the sky, lit by places still outside the Moon's shadow?

A 360-degree sunset rings the horizon because places beyond the Moon's shadow are still in sunlight, and their glow reaches viewers inside it from every direction.

A partial lunar eclipse in May 1453 seemed to fulfil a prophecy of doom for which people, besieged in their capital?

The Byzantines saw the eclipse on 22 May, during the Ottoman siege of Constantinople, and it was said to fulfil a prophecy of the city's demise. The city fell on 29 May.

Which Greek philosopher argued that Earth must be a sphere because its shadow on the eclipsed Moon is always round?

Aristotle reasoned from the round shadow, since only a sphere casts one from every angle. He added that travellers in Egypt see stars that never rise over northern lands.

Staring at a partly eclipsed Sun can permanently damage which part of the eye, with no pain to warn the viewer?

The retina has no sensitivity to pain, and the harm may not show for hours, so nothing warns a viewer that injury is under way. Even a few seconds of staring can do it.

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, whose benders lose their powers for the length of a solar eclipse?

Fire Nation benders are powerless while the Sun is covered, so Aang's allies time an invasion for the eclipse, only for Princess Azula to stall them until it ends.

Which ancient people kept astronomical diaries in cuneiform and saw that eclipses repeat in an 18-year pattern?

Babylonians treated eclipses as the most dangerous of all omens, which gave their sky-watchers every reason to keep records for centuries and hunt for a pattern.

On which continent, the only one touched by the path, did the total solar eclipse of December 2021 make landfall?

Antarctica alone lay under the path of totality that day, while observers in southern Africa and Tasmania had to settle for a partial eclipse.

On which planet do four large moons regularly cast round shadow spots, tiny eclipses visible through a telescope?

Jupiter's four big moons each cast a crisp inky spot on the cloud tops as they pass in front of the Sun, and two shadows can sometimes be seen crossing at once.

Which NBC drama that began in 2006 follows ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities after a solar eclipse?

Heroes opens with the eclipse revealing powers in strangers around the world, among them a cheerleader whose body regenerates and an office worker who can bend space and time.

Which author's 1941 story Nightfall imagines a planet of six suns plunged into darkness by a rare eclipse?

Isaac Asimov has the planet's people, who have never known night, lose their minds when the eclipse reveals a sky packed with more than 30,000 stars.

Astronomers once used total solar eclipses to hunt for which imagined planet, said to circle inside Mercury's path?

Vulcan was proposed to explain a quirk in Mercury's orbit, and two respected observers claimed to have spotted it during the eclipse of July 1878. No such planet exists.

In which 2000 Vin Diesel film do crash survivors face light-shy creatures once an eclipse darkens their planet?

Pitch Black strands its cast on a world of perpetual daylight, where a total eclipse every 22 years lets the flying predators out to hunt.

Which term describes the straight-line alignment of three celestial bodies that every eclipse depends on?

Syzygy is the name for the line-up of Sun, Moon and Earth behind every eclipse seen from the ground. When the row is even slightly crooked, the shadow simply misses.

When Mercury crosses the face of the Sun, showing as a tiny dot instead of hiding it, what is the event called?

A transit is the word when the nearer body looks smaller than the one behind it. Seen from Earth, only two planets can ever cross the Sun this way.

Which rare kind of solar eclipse appears total from the middle of its track but ring-shaped from places near each end?

Hybrid eclipses switch type because Earth is round: the middle of the track sits slightly nearer the Moon, just close enough for the tip of its shadow to touch the ground.

A solar eclipse leaves a blazing ring of sunlight around the Moon when the Moon is near which point of its orbit?

Apogee is the Moon's farthest point from Earth, where it looks slightly smaller than the Sun, so a rim of sunlight survives even at mid-eclipse.

What name is given to the red loops of glowing gas seen arching from the Sun's edge during a total solar eclipse?

Prominences are anchored to the Sun's surface and can loop hundreds of thousands of kilometres into space, yet the unaided eye catches them only when the Moon hides the glare.

What name is given to the faint ripples that race across the ground just before totality?

Shadow bands are the last sliver of Sun twinkling through turbulent air, much like the ripples of light on the floor of a swimming pool.

Which thin layer of the Sun, just above its visible surface, shows as a red rim only during a total solar eclipse?

Chromosphere means 'sphere of colour', a name earned at eclipses, when its hydrogen glows between pink and deep red in the moments it peeks past the Moon.

The word 'eclipse' descends from the ancient Greek noun ekleipsis, which also carried which bleak everyday meaning?

Abandonment was the sense: the Greek verb behind it meant to forsake one's usual place or fail to appear, as if the Sun or Moon had deserted the sky.

Which NASA spacecraft photographed Saturn eclipsing the Sun in 2013, with Earth showing as a faint dot beyond the rings?

Cassini used Saturn as a sunshade for the portrait, known as The Day the Earth Smiled, and people worldwide were invited to look up and smile while it was taken.

Astronauts of which NASA programme took the first photographs of a total solar eclipse from space, in November 1966?

Gemini 12's Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin caught the eclipse of 12 November 1966 from orbit, on the last mission of the two-man programme.

The 1806 solar eclipse foretold by the Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa is often named after which brother of his?

Tecumseh's Eclipse followed a taunt from territorial governor William Henry Harrison, who dared the Prophet to make the Sun stand still. The darkness on cue humiliated Harrison instead.

Which Shakespeare tragedy alludes to the pair of eclipses, lunar then solar, seen over London in the autumn of 1605?

King Lear mentions recent eclipses of the Sun and Moon, a nod to the lunar eclipse of 27 September and the solar one of 12 October 1605 that helps scholars date the play.

A lunar eclipse in 413 BC led the Athenian commander Nicias to delay his army's retreat from which Sicilian city?

Syracuse is where Nicias, on his priests' advice, agreed to wait 27 days after the eclipse. The delay let the defenders seal the harbour, and the Athenian army was forced to surrender.

A lunar eclipse in July 1917 helped Arab forces advised by T. E. Lawrence in their capture of which Red Sea port?

Aqaba's outlying post of Kethira was stormed on the night of 4 July with the eclipse dimming the moonlight, and the port itself fell two days later.

Which British navigator timed a 1766 solar eclipse off Canada's coast so astronomers could fix the site's longitude?

James Cook, then a naval surveyor, sent his timings to astronomer John Bevis, who compared them with the same eclipse watched from Oxford. The Royal Society heard the result in 1767.

Why did a 1780 Harvard expedition, given immunity by the British in wartime, miss the total solar eclipse?

It was outside the path of totality: leader Samuel Williams had miscalculated the track, so after all the diplomacy with the enemy his party missed the total phase.

Which American astronomer, famed for finding a comet in 1847, took five assistants to Denver for the 1878 eclipse?

Maria Mitchell, professor of astronomy at Vassar College, took a 4-inch telescope to Colorado for the eclipse. Her 1847 find, Miss Mitchell's Comet, had won her a Danish royal medal.

Nevil Maskelyne, who filmed the total solar eclipse of 1900, earned his living in which stage profession?

Magician Nevil Maskelyne was also an inventor with a mischievous streak: in 1903 he hacked into Marconi's public demonstration of wireless telegraphy to show it was not secure.

Which early photographic process did Julius Berkowski use in 1851 for the first good image of a total solar eclipse?

Daguerreotype plates were slow, so Berkowski held his exposure for 84 seconds at the Königsberg observatory, starting shortly after totality began.

Which King of Siam, the monarch portrayed in The King and I, correctly predicted the total solar eclipse of 1868?

Mongkut invited European guests to the village of Wakor to watch his prediction come true, but he caught malaria on the expedition and died six weeks later.

In Hindu tradition, which demon's severed head is said to cause eclipses by swallowing the Sun or the Moon?

Rahu lost his body to Vishnu's discus for stealing a drink of the elixir of immortality, so in the story the Sun and Moon slip back out through his throat soon after he swallows them.

In the ancient Near East, who was placed on the throne during an ominous lunar eclipse to absorb the harm it foretold?

A substitute king sat in for the real ruler, whom the eclipse was thought to endanger, and once the danger had passed the stand-in was made to disappear, possibly by poison.

Shang dynasty scribes recorded lunar eclipses on which objects, now used by historians to date China's earliest rulers?

Oracle bones are ox shoulder blades and turtle shells inscribed for royal fortune-telling, and matching their eclipse records to calculated dates helps anchor the reign of Wu Ding.

Which 1961 biblical epic starring Anthony Quinn filmed its crucifixion scene during a real total solar eclipse?

Barabbas shot the scene on 15 February 1961, using the genuine darkness of the eclipse for the gloom the Gospels describe at the crucifixion.

In which 1985 fantasy film with Michelle Pfeiffer does a solar eclipse let two cursed lovers meet in human form?

Ladyhawke turns its heroine into a hawk by day and her knight into a wolf by night, so only an eclipse lets both stand before the Bishop as humans and break the curse.

Which South American country on the Pacific coast lay under the paths of two total solar eclipses in 2019 and 2020?

Chile saw totality twice in under two years, and the first eclipse passed over mountaintop observatories such as La Silla, where astronomers normally work only once the Sun is down.

After crossing Mexico, the US and Canada, the total solar eclipse of April 2024 left North America over which island?

Newfoundland was the last land in the path: the Moon's shadow crossed the town of Gander before slipping off the island's eastern coast into the Atlantic.

A green line seen in the eclipsed Sun's light in 1869 was blamed on an unknown element; which metal really produces it?

Iron stripped of half its electrons by extreme heat gives off the line, but for some 70 years it was credited to a made-up element found nowhere on Earth.

From which island off West Africa did Arthur Eddington photograph the total solar eclipse of 1919?

Príncipe, in the Gulf of Guinea, hosted Eddington and one colleague, while a second British team photographed the same eclipse from the town of Sobral in Brazil.

Which Greek thinker, notorious for calling the Sun a mass of red-hot metal, was the first to explain eclipses correctly?

Anaxagoras may have built his theory on the eclipse of 463 BC, which was visible in Greece. He also held that the Moon is an earthy body with mountains of its own.

A solar eclipse took place on the day of which 1879 battle, a crushing Zulu victory over a British invasion force?

Isandlwana was fought on 22 January 1879, and the Moon crossed the Sun at about 2:30 that afternoon. Some 20,000 Zulu warriors overwhelmed the British camp.