NASA Reveals Solar Eclipses Image and Graphics

 Observers in parts of Southeast Asia will be treated to a celestial spectacle,S olar eclipses next week — a total eclipse of the sun.The total solar eclipse will occur Wednesday (March 9) local time (Tuesday, March 8, EST). It will begin over the Indian Ocean, then darken sections of Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi and other islands before petering out in the Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii

Many eclipse-chasers are making the long journey to see Solar eclipses as firsthand

The moon’s dark umbral shadow will first strike the Earth’s surface over the eastern Indian Ocean about 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) west of Sumatra at 0017 GMT on March 9. Just 2 minutes later, the shadow will sweep across central Sumatra and then envelop the much smaller islands of Bangka and Belitung. In the Makassar Strait, a cruise ship with more than a thousand rabid eclipse chasers will be waiting for the arrival of the lunar shadow. Totality here will last 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Should unfavorable weather conditions prevail, the ship will utilize its mobility to seek out a location where good breaks in any cloud cover may afford a view of this amazing spectacle.

After passing across the Molucca Sea, the umbra will pass over Halmahera, before heading out over the open waters of the South Pacific. Traveling to the northeast, the shadow will pass 335 miles (540 km) south of Guam, where local residents will see 84 percent of the sun obscured.

Viewers 350 miles (560 km) east of Manila, Philippines, will see the maximum duration of totality — 4 minutes and 9.5 seconds. The umbra does not make contact with any other land masses, although it will narrowly miss Wake Island — one of the most isolated islands in the world — providing those few who man the Wake Island Airfield a chance to see more than 99 percent of the sun covered at maximum eclipse. As Maxwell Smart might have said, “Missed it by that much!”

In all, the moon’s umbra will take 3 hours and 21 minutes to trace a path, like a black crayon, that will stretch for 8,800 miles (14,200 km) and will average 78 miles (125 km) in width.

Unexpected bonus for airline passengers

If you draw a line from Anchorage, Alaska, to Honolulu, the totality path of the eclipse, Solar eclipses will cross this line at almost a right angle; it might just be possible for an aircraft either traveling north from Honolulu to Anchorage, or south from Anchorage to Honolulu, to possibly intercept the moon’s dark umbral shadow.

The passengers who board Alaska Airlines flight 870 in Anchorage are probably wondering why it differed from the regularly scheduled departure time (compared to other days) by 25 minutes, but that is necessary in order to try and intercept the shadow on route to Hawaii. The aircraft, a 737-800, plans to rendezvous with the moon’s dark umbra at 5:35 p.m. Hawaii-Time on Tuesday, at a point 695 miles (1,120 km) north of Honolulu.

Rather than using a hand-turned polarization wheel to take three separate images in each polarized direction, the new camera uses thousands of tiny polarization filters to read light polarized in different directions simultaneously. Each pixel in the new camera is made of four subpixels with differently-oriented polarization filters, which provides the team with four separate but simultaneous images of the corona and cuts out the need to change polarization filters between exposures.

“We’ve cut down the length of time required for our experiment by more than 50 percent,” said Gopalswamy. “The polarization camera is faster and less risky, because it’s one less moving part.”

Though the team will be performing the experiment for the first time in the province of North Maluku, Indonesia – chosen for its accessibility and high chances of clear skies during the Solar eclipses – they’ve already given their updated instrument a test run.

“The brightness of the full moon is about equal to the brightness of the total solar eclipse,” said Reginald. “So we set up our telescope in the parking lot for practice.”

What is Solar eclipses

Solar eclipses happens whenever the new moon passes in front of the sun, and the moon’s shadow falls on our planet. A solar eclipse is only possible at new moon because that’s the only time whereby the moon can go in front of the sun, as seen from Earth. Most of the time, however, the new moon either swings north or south of the solar disk, so no eclipse of the sun takes place.