March 8th and 9th will mark very special days for anyone who likes to witness the rarer natural phenomena such as a total solar eclipse. Sadly, only skywatchers located in the Southeast Asia during those two days will be able to enjoy the entirety of it, while people situated in the Pacific islands will still be able to catch a partial eclipse.
And truth be told, that is a harshly limited amount of exposure. While this is not the kind of event that only takes place every hundred years or anything of the likes, it is still relatively rare. A total solar eclipse marks the moment when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun under a series of special requirements. Not only that the 3 need to be perfectly aligned, but the moon needs to be at a particular distance to the Earth in order to be able to cover up the entire sun on the skyline.
More precisely, this can only occur when the moon is at its perigee; also known as the moment when the Moon is at its closest point to our planet. This moment makes the moon appear larger in the night sky and also earns it the name of a supermoon.
Thus, once the alignment is complete, the moon will cast its more diffused penumbra and its concentrated umbra – the outer and inner shadow, respectively – mostly in the area of the Pacific Ocean.
The phenomenon will unfold in several locations on the surface of our planet, starting over Sumatra, Indonesia at 6 PM EST on Tuesday evening on the American time zone, then move over to Borneo, Sulawesi, continuing in a northeast manner across the Pacific Ocean and being barely noticeable close to the Hawaii before disappearing.
While the moon’s shadow will travel approximately 8,800 miles across the globe, its path (basically the diameter of the umbra) is merely 97 miles wide, restricting the zone where it will be visible to a very long and thin strip.
However, just because you’re not flying over the Pacific tomorrow doesn’t mean you can’t get to witness the total solar eclipse. With a little help from the Slooh robotic telescope will be capturing the event and streaming it to its service slooh.com here. You will be able to tune in at any time between March 8th 6 PM EST and 9 PM EST to watch it unfold.
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