The Hindu : National : An eclipse today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 14, 2004

National

National

An eclipse today

By Lalithasai

CHENNAI, OCT. 13. If you live in the northern hemisphere, pay attention to something extraordinary when the sun rises on Thursday, October 14. Just as you wake up, the moon will pass directly in front of the sun, take a bite out of it and obscure some of its light.

As a consequence of the moon partially shadowing the sun's light as viewed from the earth, the second partial solar eclipse of 2004 will begin around 6 hours 24.5 minutes. The phenomenon will end at 10 hours 34.2 minutes. The period of greatest eclipse will occur at 8 hours 29.2 minutes.

But this will be a less picturesque event than a total eclipse as the whole of the sun's bright surface will not be hidden, says Dr. P. Iyamperumal, Executive Director, Periyar Science & Technology Centre, Chennai. During this event, the dark shadow cone of the moon known as the umbra will completely miss the earth and pass above the North Pole and out into space. Meanwhile, the moon's outer shadow, known as the penumbra, from where the moon will appear to eclipse the sun partially, will slice into a part of the northern hemisphere, he said.

This eclipse can be witnessed around a belt of 5,000 km on each side of the eclipse path. It can be observed from the northern hemisphere and will be visible in the northeastern parts of Asia (China, Japan, North Korea), the United States, the Pacific Ocean and parts of Alaska. Where the point of greatest eclipse can be seen, about 92 per cent of the sun's diameter will be eclipsed. This will be the 54th eclipse of the Saros series 124. The interval between an eclipse of the sun or moon and the next one in a given series is called Saros. Each Saros is 18 years and 11.33 days longer or 18 years and 10.33 days long if there are five leap years. A solar eclipse occurs when the sun, the moon and the earth align in the same line. And these turn out to be total, annular or partial, depending on the distance between the sun and the moon. They occur only on a New Moon Day. But due to the five-degree tilt of the moon's orbit to the earth's orbit, the moon passes above or below the direct line of sight between the earth and the sun and that is why eclipses do not occur every month.

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