• Question: Why do we have a solar eclipse?

    Asked by CharlotteW to Jane, Heather, Helen, Hugh, Julian on 14 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Eli H, Izzyb, CoolE.
    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      We have solar eclipses when the moon moves in front of the Sun and blocks out some of its light. It’s pretty special, because the Moon and the Sun appear as almost exactly the same size in the sky from Earth. The Sun is actually 400 times larger than the Moon, but also 400 times further away from us. It’s an amazing coincidence!
      We can use something similar to detect planets around other stars. When a planet moves in front (in our line of sight), the amount of light we see from the star drops by a small amount.

      Have you ever seen a solar eclipse?

    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      The moon is gradually drifting away from the Earth, so soon all our eclipses will be of the annular type. Of course soon is astronomically speaking, so not many many years!

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