The first ever photograph of a solar eclipse was taken by the Prussian photographer Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski in 1851. Since then technology has made a huge leap forward and now NASA (“National Aeronautics and Space Administration”, a department of the US government) spoils us with high-quality photos and offers not only recorded videos but also live broadcasts of eclipses to the attention of modern man.
A solar eclipse is an astronomical phenomenon in which the Moon closes all or part of the Sun from an observer on Earth. Further we will describe this process in the most accessible wording in everyday life.
In the modern world, the time of a solar eclipse can be calculated to the nearest second, and knowing information about the movement of the planets, you can specify the exact location of the eclipse. At intervals of once every year and a half, a total solar eclipse can be observed somewhere on Earth, the time and place of which depends on the movement and rotation of the Sun, Earth, and Moon.
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is exactly between the Earth and the Sun and casts its shadow on the Earth. A partial eclipse or eclipse with a glowing solar disk around a black spot of the Moon (an annular eclipse) is much more common than a total eclipse, when the solar disk is completely blocked by the Moon, forming a black spot around which a halo or corona-like glow is seen.
All eclipses, especially total solar eclipses, are a result of the amazing geometry of the sky. The Sun is about 400 times the diameter of the Moon, while the Moon is 400 times closer to the Earth. The ratio of 400 times farther, but 400 times larger is the ideal situation in which the Moon completely hides the surface of the Sun from the inhabitants of planet Earth and allows us to observe a total eclipse. No other planet in the solar system has this!
According to the astronomical classification, if an eclipse can be observed as a total eclipse at least somewhere on the surface of the Earth, it is called a total eclipse. A total eclipse makes a powerful impression. Explorers or keen people, knowing the location and time of a total eclipse strive to get to that part of the globe in time to see it with their own eyes.
Every solar eclipse is unique.
And so we know that an eclipse cannot be observed by all the inhabitants of our planet at the same time, but only in that part of it and in that area where the corresponding shadow of the Moon falls, and we know that an eclipse may not necessarily be total. Does it mean that inhabitants of those regions where an eclipse can’t be seen don’t have energy power of this natural phenomenon and the eclipse doesn’t exist for them? We hasten to debunk this myth.
In the period before and after a solar eclipse all energetic processes increase significantly, reaching their peak during the eclipse itself. The most amazing thing is that having this knowledge and being aware of its importance, every individual has an opportunity to correct these processes.