The Total Solar Eclipse

by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
The Total Solar Eclipse

Astronomer Johannes Kepler did not have the benefit of sophisticated telescopes or computers yet, in the 17th century, he was able to establish a proven harmonic relationship between the planets. In his third law of planetary motion Kepler states: The orbital period of a planet is proportional to its distance to the Sun This was first revealed in his seminal work Harmonice Mundi or 'Harmony of the World' in 1619. It is also known as the Harmonic Law.Kepler's discoveries still hold firm today and corroborate the Pythagorean based theory, that the fabric of our existence is woven with number.One of the ways that we can visibly observe the presence of this theory is in the relationship and planetary intervals between the Sun, Moon and Earth. More specifically in the observation of Eclipses that occur in regular, repeating numbered patterns known as The Saros Cycle. On Earth we can witness anything between two and five solar eclipses in a year. The periodicity of each cycle is 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours and there are some 70 eclipses (lunar and solar) in each Saros series, spanning 1,260 years.The Sun is but one star amongst an infinite number of others, within an infinite number of galaxies. However, without this star and indeed the solar system, life would just not exist. Although, in the greater scheme of things, the Sun is a fairly insignificant star, its size may be better appreciated when I tell you that, hypothetically, it could accommodate one million planets the size of Earth. Being approximately 109 times the diameter of the Earth, the Sun is 400 times greater than the Moon's diameter, whilst the Moon is approximately one-quarter the Earth's diameter.In one of the most beautiful displays of perfection and synchronicity known to Man, under certain conditions the disc of the Moon is able to completely blot out the light of the Sun, which throws a path of darkness over the surface of the Earth. It is an event known as a Total Solar Eclipse. Due to its distance from the Sun and Earth, and the plane of its orbit when it comes between them, the Moon will periodically cover the face of the Sun in various degrees of obscuration. Thus we can have Total, Annular, Partial and Non Central eclipses.The next one in the Saros cycle, is a Total Solar Eclipse, which will occur on Mar 29 2006 at 10.11:21 GMT for duration of 4 minutes and 7 seconds. The area of darkness that the Moon's shadow will cause is known as the path of totality. This eclipse has a path of totality that sweeps up from Brazil crossing the South Atlantic Ocean and making landfall through Togo, Benin. Nigeria, Niger, Chad,Libya and Egypt and then extending on up through Turkey and ending in Mongolia.With the introduction of space probes such as SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), those in scientific community are beginning to understand the forces that the

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