Tomorrow, Monday April 8th, the residents of North America will enjoy a total solar eclipse – and a rare one. The path of the eclipse is very wide this time, and it will pass through some of the most populated cities in the world. According to estimates, 32 million people live in the full path of the eclipse, and millions more will join them to witness the natural wonder.
The eclipse will begin over the Atlantic Ocean, from where it will “enter” Mexico at 11:07 a.m. local time (9:07 p.m. Israel time). From there, the path of the total eclipse will continue towards the northwest, passing over many US states – Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. In Canada, the total eclipse will be visible Over Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton.The total eclipse will “leave” the North American continent towards the Atlantic Ocean to the coast of Newfoundland in Canada at 17:16 local time (22:46 Israel time).
The eclipse will get shorter over time: it will last four minutes and 28 seconds when it appears over the land of Mexico, and three minutes and 21 seconds when it leaves Canada. In between, the moon’s disc will fully cover the sun’s disc, complete darkness will prevail at noon, temperatures will drop at once by about 5 degrees Celsius and residents and tourists will be given the opportunity to see the corona of the sun shining through the edge of the moon.
The 2006 total solar eclipse over Turkey and Cyprus, as photographed from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
The next solar eclipses in Israel
A total solar eclipse is the heartening result of a cosmic coincidence: the Sun is about 400 times larger than the Moon, but it is also 400 times further away from Earth – so they overlap in size as seen in our sky, and the Moon’s disk can completely block the Sun’s disk. The angular diameter of Mars’ two tiny moons Phobos and Deimos for example is smaller than that of the Sun, so there is never a total solar eclipse on Mars. On the other hand, the outer planets such as Jupiter and Saturn have many moons and some of them are large enough that they easily hide the distant sun. Except for the Earth, we do not know in the solar system another gram of sky with a moon whose size and distance from the sun are sonared that it precisely hides it.
Like everything else in the universe (and life), total solar eclipses from Earth are a temporary phenomenon. Thanks to retroreflectors placed by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and others on the lunar soil, scientists know how to accurately measure the distance between us and our natural satellite – and this distance is increasing. The Moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 3.8 cm each year, which means that the duration and frequency of total solar eclipses is decreasing. 600 million years from now, the Moon’s disk will completely cover the Sun’s disk for the last time.
If you are a mortal living in Israel, we have bad news for you: before the year 2180, no total solar eclipse will be seen in the sky of the country. Still, on August 2, 2027, an impressive solar eclipse will be seen in the sky of Israel, and over Eilat it will be almost full. Likewise for the solar eclipse of March 20, 2034.
