THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
University of Southern Maine
96 Falmouth Street
Portland, Maine 04103
usm.maine.edu/planet
(207) 780-4249


THE WANDERING ASTRONOMER
Thursday, February 1, 2024
April Eclipse II:  Just a Simple Syzygy

*[67 DAYS UNTIL THE APRIL 8TH ECLIPSE]*

Drop everything!
Your milk-coated spoons, persistent bad habits, the hitherto unexpressed
unsubtle hints, the other shoes, and anything and everything that's
unattached or at least loosely bound.   A total solar eclipse is happening
right now, at this very moment.     And, you're missing it.      If you're
preparing to bolt madly for the nearest window, don't bother.    You and I
are missing this eclipse because it's happening far away from not only us,
but from every Earthling.        To observe the total solar eclipse
happening now, one would only have to be positioned toward the tail end of
the moon's tapering shadow.    In other words, you'd have to be teleported
to that very point in space.

Solar eclipses are not rare at all. In fact, they're happening constantly.
  At some point, perhaps, Musk and his coterie of solar system-subduers
will provide eclipse tours to the obscenely affluent so that they may
behold this unearthly spectacle whenever they wish.       We, alas, have to
wait.  We have to wait until April 8th, when the moon's shadow sweeps
tenderly along the terrestrial cheek and steeps us in an untimely afternoon
darkness.

It's called* syzygy* (pronounced si-zuh-jee), defined as the nearly
straight line alignment of three celestial bodies.         Astronomers
define three main  syzygy types:    occultations, transits and eclipses.
    An *occultation* refers to the direct passage of a larger body in front
of a smaller one.     For instance, on June 1, 2024, the moon will appear
to occult the more distant Neptune when seen by observers in Madagascar.
 While the moon is indeed much smaller than Neptune, from our perspective
it appears larger by virtue of its much closer proximity.     A
*transit *occurs
when a small body passes in front of a larger body so that the former does
not entirely cover the latter.  The next transit of Mercury, the passage of
Mercury across the solar disc, will happen on November 13, 2032.  We'll
have to wait until December 11, 2117 to observe the next transit of Venus.
  An *eclipse* occurs when the body wholly or partially disappears from
view due to the presence of another.  We acknowledge two main eclipse
types:   a solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon passes in front of the
Sun; and a lunar eclipse, which occurs when the moon moves into Earth's
shadow.

On April 8th, we'll experience the type of syzygy in which the moon, Earth
and Sun are so aligned so that the moon's nearly quarter million mile long
shadow cone will touch our planet. Observers within this cone will watch
the moon slowly move across the solar disc until the latter is entirely
blocked by the former.       Throughout the next two months as we explore
the various aspects of this solar eclipse, we should remember that this
most magnificent of all celestial phenomena is, at base, just a simple
syzygy.


April Eclipse 3:   Eclipse types