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On Saturday, the moon will move between the earth and the sun, resulting in a partial solar eclipse. Where you can watch it.
Around two weeks after the partial lunar eclipse, the next spectacle in the sky is just around the corner. On Saturday (29 March), weather permitting, we will be able to observe a partial solar eclipse in our area.
Around midday, the moon passes in front of the sun and partially covers it, casting a shadow over parts of the northern hemisphere.
Around 13.5 percent of the sun’s disk will be covered in our area. The solar eclipse will be more spectacular in Iceland or Canada. At the peak of the eclipse, only a crescent of the sun can be seen, and in some places, the sun rises already eclipsed.
In the north of the Canadian province of Québec, the new moon will cover a maximum of 93.1 percent of the sun’s disk. In Reykjavik, it will still be 67 percent.
You must protect your eyes with special glasses to observe the solar eclipse. Earth’s light decreases when the moon covers part of the sun.
“However, this does not apply to the invisible UV rays and infrared light, which reach the eye despite the eclipse and can cause major, often irreparable damage,” says Niklas Winkler from the Eye Clinic at the University Hospital Zurich.
Solar eclipse glasses are available from opticians and, in some cases, pharmacies or drugstores. They should be certified and bear the CE mark. Alexander Pikhard from the Vienna Working Group for Astronomy (WAA) warns against using “home remedies” such as rescue blankets, soot-blackened glasses, CDs, or similar.
Every year, two solar eclipses can be observed somewhere on Earth. They always happen when the new moon is so exactly between the Earth and the Sun that its orbit intersects the Earth’s orbit. Each event is only visible within the 7,000-kilometer-wide track of the moon’s penumbra, which covers part of the Earth.
A total solar eclipse can only ever be seen over a strip no more than 200 kilometers wide, making it a truly rare occurrence for any single location on Earth.
As the moon’s orbit is somewhat irregular, the two solar eclipses do not always occur simultaneously—this year in March and September. The eclipse on 21 September will take place over the South Pacific and will only be visible in the far east of Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica.
- source: heute.at/picture: Image by Brian Garrity from Pixabay
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