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Annular and total solar eclipses of 2003
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Author | Espenak, Fred Anderson, Jay |
| Copyright Year | 2002 |
| Description | On Saturday, 2003 May 31, an annular eclipse of the Sun will be visible from a broad corridor that traverses the North Atlantic. The path of the Moon's antumbral shadow begins in northern Scotland, crosses Iceland and central Greenland, and ends at sunrise in Baffin Bay (Canada). A partial eclipse will be seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of Europe, the Middle East, central and northern Asia, and northwestern North America. The trajectory of the Moon's shadow is quite unusual during this event. The shadow axis passes to the far north where it barely grazes Earth's surface. In fact, the northern edge of the antumbra actually misses Earth so that one path limit is defined by the day/night terminator rather than by the shadow's upper edge. As a result, the track of annularity has a peculiar "D" shape that is nearly 1200 kilometers wide. Since the eclipse occurs just three weeks prior to the northern summer solstice, Earth's northern axis is pointed sunwards by 22.8 deg. As seen from the Sun, the antumbral shadow actually passes between the North Pole and the terminator. As a consequence of this extraordinary geometry, the path of annularity runs from east to west rather than the more typical west to east. The event transpires near the Moon's ascending node in Taurus five degrees north of Aldebaran. Since apogee occurs three days earlier (May 28 at 13 UT), the Moon's apparent diameter (29.6 arc-minutes) is still too small to completely cover the Sun (31.6 arc-minutes) resulting in an annular eclipse. |
| File Size | 5668923 |
| Page Count | 80 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_20020094308 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t1vf1sd9x |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 2002-10-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Astronomy Atlantic Ocean Europe Scotland Trajectories Apogees Sun Iceland Penumbras Solar Eclipses Canada Asia North America Corridors Shapes Greenland Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports Server (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Technical Report |
