Honestly, I don’t get it. I saw the total eclipse in '17 and I’ve seen a couple of partial eclipses and they weren’t particularly exciting. I live about 10 min outside of the total eclipse path and I’m not even sure I’m going to walk outside for it. What am I missing? Why are people spending thousands of dollars to see it?
The duration of the total eclipse is going to be about 4 minutes which is going to make it rather a unique experience.
Fun fact: the Sun is 8.3 light-seonds away from Earth, so the eclipse will start with light that left the Sun 8 minutes earlier, and end with light that left it 4 minutes before the eclipse.
If someone were to stand on Earth and send a signal to the Sun saying “hey, the eclipse is starting!”… it wouldn’t reach the Sun until 4 minutes after it already ended.
Light is a constant and there isn’t gravitational lensing between the Earth and Sun. Any light from the Sun always reaches us at the same speed of roughly 8 minutes
This article exudes “we have Nintendo at home” energy.
A bit too late for me, I arrived in the path of totality yesterday. I traveled to see the annular eclipse last October and it was absolutely amazing. I’m sure this one is going to be even better!
Update: It was, hands down, the best thing I’ve ever seen. Don’t listen to the blog lol.
