Why are eclipses rare? Detailed answer

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Why are eclipses rare? Detailed answer

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Why are eclipses rare?

In its rotation around the Earth, the Moon sometimes finds itself directly between the Earth and the Sun, casting a shadow on the surface of the Earth. There is an eclipse of the Sun.

An eclipse occurs at a new moon when the moon is above the part of the earth facing the sun. Then why doesn't an eclipse of the Sun occur at every new moon? The fact is that the orbit of the Moon around the Earth does not coincide with the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. When rotating around the Earth (complete rotation is completed in 29 days), the Moon sometimes passes above, sometimes below the Earth's orbit.

An eclipse of the Sun can be total, annular or partial. If the Moon completely covers the Sun, the eclipse is total. However, the distance of the Moon from the Earth is not constant. Often the Moon is too far from the Earth and cannot completely cover the Sun. Then, during an eclipse, the Moon is a dark disk that covers almost the entire surface of the Sun, with the exception of a narrow ring along the outer edge. This thin ring of light is called a "corona" and an eclipse is called an annular eclipse. In a partial eclipse, only part of the Moon's disk is between the Sun and the Earth.

An eclipse of the Moon occurs only when the Moon is full and when it is located on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. When the Earth passes between the Moon and the Sun, the Moon enters the Earth's shadow and disappears from view. A partial eclipse occurs when the Moon only partially enters the Earth's shadow.

In some years there are no lunar eclipses, in others - from one to three. There are two to five solar eclipses every year. In some parts of the Earth, a total solar eclipse can be observed once every 360 years.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Why do glaciers still exist today?

A huge mass of ice, from the formation of which the ice age began in North America, was called the "continental glacier": in the very center its thickness reached 4,5 km. It is possible that this glacier formed and melted four times during the entire ice age.

The glacier that covered other parts of the world has not melted in some places! For example, the huge island of Greenland is still covered by continental ice, except for a narrow coastal strip. In its middle part, the glacier sometimes reaches a thickness of more than three kilometers. Antarctica is also covered by a vast continental glacier up to 4 kilometers thick in some places!

So the reason why there are glaciers in some parts of the world is that they have not melted since the Ice Age. But the bulk of the glaciers that are found now, formed recently. They are mainly located in mountain valleys.

They originate in wide, gently sloping, amphitheater-like valleys. Snow falls here from the slopes as a result of landslides and avalanches. Such snow does not melt in the summer, becoming deeper every year. Gradually, pressure from above, some thawing, and repeated freezing remove air from the bottom of this snow mass, turning it into solid ice. The impact of the weight of the entire mass of ice and snow compresses the entire mass and causes it to move down the valley. Such a moving tongue of ice is a mountain glacier.

More than 1200 such glaciers are known in Europe in the Alps! They also exist in the Pyrenees, in the Carpathians, in the Caucasus, as well as in the mountains of southern Asia. There are tens of thousands of these glaciers in southern Alaska, some 50 to 100 km long!

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Microsoft will release a revolutionary smartphone 27.11.2016

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced that the company will release a groundbreaking mobile device in 2017, the Surface Phone.

The head of Microsoft told some technological details in an interview with the national Australian financial and economic newspaper Australian Financial Review. "We continue to remain in the mobile market, but we are not equal to its leaders. However, we can definitely create the optimal mobile device. Therefore, we stopped making gadgets from the category "and I am the same", and focused on devices for the specific needs of a client who needs a specific set of possibilities," Nadella said.

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