Since we see the new moon at least once in a month when the Moon gets in between of the Sun and the Earth during the evening ( and as far as I know if this happens during the day, you'll get to see a solar eclipse. Why don't we get to see this often or in the day?
Does it mean that in some part of world there's a solar eclipse when we are seeing a new moon? I'm looking for a diagram or interactive way to understand this if possible as I'm not a native English speaker, but I'll try my best to do so.
Answer
The thing is, the Moon's orbital plane is slightly tilted (about 5$^\circ$) with respect to Earth's which means from the Earth's perspective that the Moon's motion oscillates around the Sun's trajectory. On most new moons, then, the Moon is either north or south of the Sun and we don't see an eclipse.
For eclipses to happen, new and full moons must occur when the Moon crosses the Ecliptic. Equivalently, the intersection of the Moon and Earth orbital planes have to align with both the Sun-Earth and the Earth-Moon directions. No wonder they don't happen that often!
Edit: I don't know any good 3D simulator, but I found My Solar System (which I got from Mike's answer to this question) good fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment