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Article: When the Moon meets the Sun on a tropical island ...
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- September 30, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Hot on the heels of last Thursday night's lunar eclipse comes a
comparative rarity: an eclipse of the Sun, on Saturday, 12 October.
What is even more unusual is that it will be easily visible from
the British Isles, and it even takes place at a civilised time of
day - around lunchtime. The bad news is that the eclipse will not
be total, so there will be no dramatic sights of a blacked-out Sun
surrounded by its faint outer atmosphere. But it will be the best
eclipse of the Sun visible in Britain since 1961.
Solar eclipses happen because of a weird coincidence: the Sun
and Moon appear almost exactly the same size in the sky. In fact,
the Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon - but it is ...