Showing posts with label solar eclipse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solar eclipse. Show all posts

26 February 2017

Annular Solar Eclipse on February 26, 2017

Today, if you are lucky enough to live in the southern hemisphere, there will be an annular solar eclipse. It is going on right now.

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2017-february-26

08 March 2016

Total Solar Eclipse for March 8-9, 2016

There will be a total solar eclipse today, but only if you are in the areas below. Australians and Southeast Asians will have the best view. Some in Hawai'i will see a partial solar eclipse.


See this link for more information.

16 March 2015

Solar Eclipse of 20 March 2015

There is a solar eclipse this week that will be visible in a small portion of the world. So for my readers in Europe and northwest Asia, you will get to see a partial eclipse. If you live in the archipelago of Svalbard, you will be able to see the total eclipse.

All information below is from Time and Date.com
Area seeing the total solar eclipse.
More than 90% of the sun is covered.
Up to 90% of the sun is covered.
Up to 40% of the sun is covered.
Eclipse is not visible at all.
Note: Percentage values (%) relate to moon coverage of the sun and depends on location. Visibility is weather permitting.

Here are the times the eclipse will be visible.
EventUTC Time
First location to see partial eclipse beginMar 20 at 7:41 AM
First location to see full Eclipse beginMar 20 at 9:09 AM
Maximum EclipseMar 20 at 9:45 AM
Last location to see full Eclipse endMar 20 at 10:22 AM
Last location to see partial Eclipse endMar 20 at 11:50 AM

03 February 2015

General Relativity

General Relativity is a theory of gravity that was developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915. It is actually an expansion of Newtonian gravity by adding a component to Isaac Newton's theory: spacetime.


Isaac Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation only showed how two masses interacted with each other. It is given by this equation:
The force of gravity between two masses, M and m, is the product of a constant, G, and their masses divided by their separation squared. For a couple of centuries, this worked. But when careful examinations of Mercury were made, this equation did not really fit the observations. That's when Einstein made his revelation.
MASS CURVES SPACETIME
What does this mean? For thousands of years, everyone thought of space as having three dimensions: length, width, and depth; and those three dimensions were flat. But Einstein showed mathematically that there are actually four dimensions, the fourth being time. But the more important thing is that mass can affect the flatness of space.

Imagine a sheet of rubber. You stretch it out flat. Now, on that sheet, place a marble. Where the marble lies, there is a small depression. Take the marble away, and replace it with a bowling ball. The depression is much bigger. This is like spacetime. The higher the mass, the deeper the depression in spacetime.
As shown, the higher the concentration of mass, the larger the curvature. Around the Earth, the depression is small compared to the Sun's depression. Around a larger star, like Rigel, the depression is enormous.

This curvature helps explain why the equinoxes precess, why orbitals are elliptical, and why objects move faster the closer they are to the body they orbit. This theory was proven when observing Mercury's orbit and why it's perihelion precessed. It also was proven by Sir Arthur Eddington when he observed a star behind the Sun during a solar eclipse, which will be explained next.