Solar Eclipse of the 22nd July 2009
Summary
This piece of writing describes the solar eclipse that will happen on the 22nd July 2009 in China and it introduce to its formation.
Black sun, death to astronomers!
No astronomical happening is as much suggestive and involving as a Solar Eclipse observed in the middle of the Lunar Shadow, but in the pre-Galilean centuries, any deviation of the regular stars movement took people by surprise, frightening them. Among all thousand-year-events, solar eclipses were the most frightening: life on Earth strictly depends on the light and heat of the Sun and its disappearing has always been the most terrible thing could ever happen. This the reason why the solar eclipses have always been a deadly event, omen of mi unfortunes, and were exorcised with rituals and sacrifices. In China a natural antidote was the announcement of the event by the emperor. In the Chinese chronicles it has been reported that the 22nd October 2.137 b.C. a total solar eclipse happened and that the astronomers “His” and “Ho” were condemned to death because, since they were drunk, they didn’t forecast it. It was said that during the eclipses a dragon ate the Sun; in order to avoid that the event undermined the emperor authority, it was necessary that the emperor himself warned the population about what it was to happen, throughout a great celebrative event. He had to be informed even about its direction because it showed which country would have received the good or the bad effect by the astral event. The legendary tale of Ho and Hsi, who didn’t forecast the eclipse, makes us think about the risk of being an astronomer during that period. The 22nd July 2009 in China a solar eclipse will happen again and it will be the longest of the century. But in this occasion the astronomers have forecast every aspect of it, so they won’t be killed this time! It will be an extraordinary event, whose totality will last for 6 minutes and 39 seconds (on average its totality lasts 3-4 minutes). The shadow of this eclipse will start from India, i twill cross Nepal, central China, touching Japanese islands and will cut in two pieces the Pacific Ocean touching Honolulu without reaching the American coasts.
How the eclipse will appear
The Eclipse in China will be perceived in this way: it’s daylight (Shanghai, 08h23m am in the morning), in the sky it’s possible to see the Sun progressively turning off, but initially the dazzling light doesn’t allow to easily realize what is happening. It seems that something dark is interposing in front of the solar disc, it’s the Moon, but it can be distinguished. The Light carries on decreasing, the Temperature decreases over 6 degrees in few minutes, the humidity grows up of the 30% and the cold perception becomes almost tiresome. Thug being daylight the crickets start singing, as the night as already began, a sudden and cold wind rises, to the horizon it is possible to see yellow-orange color of the sunset, but now the colors are upside down as we observe the twilight in a mirror way. All of a sudden the Sun disappears, birds seem to fly in a chaotic way, the insects lie down the ground, flowers close. The “Baily grains” and the diamond ring on the solar disc appearing announce us the totally coming. At this point a halo appears all round the sun and it’s possible to see along the border some orange flames, they are the solar protuberance. Now we can see the black sun, in the sky stars appear and the cocks sing. From the solar disc a white crown spread, which seems to soften in the dark sky and to vibrate with the orange flames. Not even the cold and fresh breeze on the face could divert the attention from this extraordinary phenomenon. It seems to watch a science film, but it isn’t so, we are dumbstruck for so many beauty and cosmic precision.
Solar Eclipse Formation
Eclipses are one of the periodic phenomena of the sky. Now let’s see how they happen: the Sun-Heart-Moon system cyclically occurs in a sort of configuration in which the three bodies are coplanar and show an angular intersection of 5°09” into two points called “node”. Eclipse happens when the three bodies are lined up and the Moon is near one of this node; it could happen at least twice in an year with a distance of about 6 months from each other, it follows that every year from a minimum of two solar eclipse and two lunar eclipse to a maximum of seven could happen (five solar ones and two lunar, or four solar ones and three lunar, or three solar ones and four lunar or, at the end, but rarely, two solar ones and five lunar). The periodicity mechanism of the eclipse is influenced by the lunar months and in particular by the “diachronic” month (the moon coming back to the same node) and by the “synoptic” month (the moon coming back to the same set, for example from the Full Moon to the Full Moon). There are several astronomic combinations which set the eclipse cycle similar and far from time; among these the most famous is the “Saros cycle” which correlates 223 diachronic months with 242 synoptic months. The Babilonesi were the first to find out the Saros Cycle (“Saros” in “caldea” language means “eclipse”), these cycles are collected in series of changeable lasting from 1226 to 1532 years (from 69 to 86 cycles). Every series is marked by a number, i.e. the 11st August 1999 eclipse belongs to the Saros 145, while the one which will happen the 22th July in China to the Saros 136.
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