Eclipses

📖 In short

Eclipses are amazing events in the sky. A solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, blocking the Sun's light in the daytime. A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon, so the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow at night.

🤩 Did you know?

The path of a total eclipse on Earth is no more than about 270 kilometers wide.
A solar eclipse only happens at new moon, and a lunar eclipse at full moon.
The astronomer Rømer worked out the speed of light in 1675 by studying eclipses of Jupiter's moons.
Photos of the 1919 eclipse supported Einstein's theory that light bends.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Solar eclipses

In a total eclipse the Moon covers the whole Sun, so daytime turns dark like evening for a few minutes, the stars come out, and a beautiful halo of white light surrounds the black Moon.

🔍 Don't look at the Sun!

Never look at the Sun during an eclipse with your eyes or ordinary sunglasses, because it burns the eyes. Only look through special eclipse glasses, or through a pinhole in a sheet of paper that projects the Sun's image onto another sheet.