The Antarctic solar eclipse of Thursday is for penguins

A solar eclipse is scheduled for Thursday of this week, but to see it, it would take a little trip.

Truth be told, few people will see this eclipse, thanks to its location: The shadow of the moon will fall mostly on the ocean waters that lie between Australia and the US. Antarctica – the region where the Indian and Pacific Oceans merge. People who will have the chance to see the moon take a little nibble in the sun include those living in Australia, in part of the territories of South Australia and Victoria as well as those who live on the island. Tasmania; observers in New Zealand, at the southern tip of the South Island and on Stewart Island; and observers located on a slice of East Antarctica. Hobart, Tasmania, will eclipse about 10% of the sun's diameter, while Melbourne, Australia, will barely see a notch in the sun's disk, which equates to only 2.5% eclipsed! (Note that it will be Friday, July 13, local time.)

In fact, the largest eclipse – where only about one-third of the sun's diameter will be overshadowed by the new moon that passes – will occur on the same day. Antarctica, near Peterson Bank, where a colony of emperor penguins currently exists (although this does not happen in the future, the exact location of the colony changes continuously, due to changing ice conditions ). [Solar Eclipse Guide 2018: When, Where & How to See Them]

So, maybe more penguins than men will witness this eclipse.

The beginning of the eclipse season # 2

We are now in our second eclipse season of 2018. The eclipse seasons are actually less than six months apart, from about 19 days, so that they continue to fall as much earlier each year. Last year, periods when eclipses could occur decreased in February and August; this year, they went to January and February, and July and August. Next year, they will have changed again, so that one will come in January and the second in July. Towards the end of the year (Christmas Day), an eclipse will sneak in to make a third season of eclipse

What is a season of Christmas? eclipse?

It is about a period of about a month, during which eclipses are possible to new and full moons, because the line of the nodes of the moon's orbit it is close enough to the sun. The orbit of the moon is tilted towards the Earth at an angle of more than 5 degrees, and the nodes are the two points of intersection of the planes, ie, where the moon goes down or goes up in the plane that the Earth turns around the sun. , called the plane of the ecliptic.

Imagine the orbit of the moon as a coin held on a slope and staying in the same orientation as that carried around the sun. The earth is in the center of the room; the nodes are the two points on the periphery of the piece which are on the same ecliptic plane as the Earth. If the moon is elsewhere on the rim, it is too high or too low to cast its shadow on the Earth.

The middle of this summer's eclipse season coincides with a total eclipse of the moon on July 27, and it is so central (the moon will pass almost in the middle of the Earth's shadow) that we can also have two solar eclipses – the first comes two weeks before the moon and the other solar eclipse comes two weeks after.

A small shadow

Interestingly, the moon will also be very close to the Earth during these celestial events; The lunar perigee occurs a little more than 5 hours after the new moon. In fact, Friday's solar eclipse covers an even smaller area of ​​the Earth's surface because the shadows of the moon's shadow (its outer shadow), in contrast to the shadow, it widens and moves away from the moon. Meanwhile, the shadow of the moon, from where the great spectacle of a total eclipse would be seen, passes far beyond the Earth, but misses the planet more than one-third of the Earth's radius – for an observer in Antarctica, this part of the shadow is 2,200 miles (2,200 kilometers) in altitude.

In short, with regard to solar eclipses, this one is very "disappointing".

Joe Rao is a partner at Hayden Planetarium in New York. He writes on astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers' Almanac and other publications, and he is also a weather forecaster on camera for FiOS1 News, Lower Hudson Valley, New York. Follow us on @Spacedotcom Facebook and Google+. Original document on Space.com