Astronomy

According to NASA’s Eclipse Home Page, there is two eclipses happened during this month. The first is Annular Solar Eclipses that took place on February 7, 2008, and the second one is Total Lunar Eclipse on February 21. The first eclipse will be visible from a wide track, which traverses Antarctica and southern regions of the Pacific Ocean. A partial eclipse will be seen within the much larger path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, which includes the southeastern third of Australia, all of New Zealand and most of Antarctica.

The annular path begins in Antarctica at 03:20 UT when the Moon’s antumbral shadow meets Earth and forms a 581 kilometers wide corridor near the base of the continent’s peninsula region. Traveling westward, the shadow quickly crosses Antarctica and turns north as it heads into the Pacific. Greatest eclipse takes place at 03:55:05 UT when the eclipse magnitude will reach 0.9650. At this instant, the annular duration is 2 minutes 12 seconds, the path width is 444 kilometers and the Sun is 16° above the featureless horizon of the open ocean. The central track continues north before gradually curving to the east where it ends at local sunset at 04:31 UT. During its 1 hour 10 minute flight across our planet, the Moon’s antumbra travels approximately 5,600 kilometers and covers 0.59% of Earth’s surface area.

The February 21 eclipse will be visible to observers throughout most of the Americas as well as Western Europe. Penumbral Eclipse Begins at 00:36:35 UT, while Greatest Eclipse occur on 03:26:05 UT. Eclipse end at 06:15:39 UT.

At the instant of greatest eclipse the Moon lies near the zenith for observers in French Guiana. At this time, the umbral magnitude peaks at 1.1062 as the Moon’s northern limb passes 7.2 arc-minutes south of the shadow’s central axis. In contrast, the Moon’s southern limb lays 3.3 arc-minutes from the southern edge of the umbra and 38.4 arc-minutes from the shadow centre. Thus, the northern half of the Moon will appear much darker than the southern half because it lies deeper in the shadow. Since the Moon samples a large range of umbral depths during totality, its appearance will change dramatically with time.

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