Sun and moon will move across the sky at about 10:30 a.m. Mountain Time on Saturday, Oct. 14. This will make a fiery “ring of fire” in the sky above most of the western U.S.
This will be the first of two eclipses that people in North America will see this year. They are called annular eclipses. In April 2024, a total solar eclipse will also cross over a large part of the country. During this eclipse, the moon will completely block the sun’s face.
John Keller, director of the Fiske Planetarium at CU Boulder, said that even though Boulder isn’t in the path of the full eclipse in October, people in Colorado can still see a beautiful partial eclipse. In honor of CU Boulder’s Family Weekend, the planetarium will hold a viewing party on the Norlin Quad from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Anyone can come and watch.
Keller helps spread the word about NASA’s Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH). Four small spacecraft will be sent to study the solar wind, which is the radiation that comes from the sun almost all the time. What did he think Coloradans could expect from the upcoming eclipse? He talked about how people have been interested in these kinds of astronomical events for thousands of years. He also gave safe ways to watch these events.
It’s possible to tell the difference between an annular eclipse and a total eclipse because the moon will not completely block the sun during an annular eclipse. A “ring of fire,” or annulus, will be visible around the sun.
The annular eclipse will first reach land in Oregon. It will then move down through Nevada and Utah, and finally, it will go through the Four Corners region, which is made up of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. It’s going to keep going to Texas and then out to the Caribbean. You will see a partial eclipse if you are outside that path, like us in Boulder. The moon will block part of the sun.
Eclipses happen somewhere in the world about every two years. In any given place, though, they only show up once every ten years or less often. There will be another total eclipse in April 2024. In 2017, there was a lucky total eclipse that went over the United States. But the next total eclipse that goes over the United States will not happen until 2044. What will happen during the full eclipse in 2020?
A full eclipse of the sun will happen in April 2024. This is not like an annular eclipse where the moon only blocks part of the sun. Mazatlán, Mexico, is where it will begin. It will go through Texas and Arkansas, south Detroit, and on to Maine and Nova Scotia. We can see a part of the eclipse in Boulder. An interesting fact is that eclipses always go from west to east. This is because the moon moves from west to east in its orbit around the Earth.
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