Astro Blog

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-does-solar-eclipse-mars-look-like-new-breathtaking-images-caught-nasa-perseverance-rover-idea-180983795/ By Carlyn Kranking , Smithsonian Magazine.  Excerpt: The robot recently observed each of the Red Planet’s moons passing across the sun in the Martian sky [see photo in this article]. 

https://www.fraknoi.com/astronomy/eclipsed-earth-rise-from-the-moon/ Source:    Andrew Fraknoi blog Excerpt:  On April 20, the Japanese Hakuto-R spacecraft took a remarkable image of the Earth from orbit around the Moon, showing a total eclipse of the Sun in progress near Australia. Unfortunately, the spacecraft, which would have been the first commercial mission to land on the Moon, appears to have crashed on the Moon when the controllers attempted touch down on April 25. Still, this beautiful image, showing our colorful Earth on the limb of the Moon will stand as a testament to the mission. (They are not the first to fail to land a capsule on the Moon, and they probably won’t be the last.) Click the little arrow on the side of the photo and you will be taken to a closer-up image of the Earth that shows more clearly the dark shadow of the Moon during the April 20th eclipse. That view is from DSCOVR, a climate-monitoring satellite (belonging the National Oceanic and Atmo...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/science/eclipse-einstein-general-relativity.html Source:   By Dennis Overbye, The New York Times For Investigation:  4.1, 6.1 Excerpt: In 1919, British astronomers photographed a solar eclipse and proved that light bends around our sun — affirming Einstein’s theory of general relativity. ...Few eclipses have had more impact on modern history than the one that occurred on May 29, 1919, more than six minutes of darkness sweeping across South America and across the Atlantic to Africa. It was during that eclipse that the British astronomer Arthur Eddington ascertained that the light rays from distant stars had been wrenched off their paths by the gravitational field of the sun. That affirmed the prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, ascribing gravity to a warp in the geometry of space-time, that gravity could bend light beams....

Source:   By Rebekah Higgit, The Guardian. Excerpt: 300 years ago, on the 3rd of May 1715, a rare solar eclipse occurred over England. It was an opportunity too good to miss for those promoting new astronomical theories – and their own careers. In 1715, 300 years ago today, a total solar eclipse was visible across a broad band of England. It was the first to be predicted on the basis of the Newtonian theory of universal gravitation, its path mapped clearly and advertised widely in advance. Visible in locations such as London and Cambridge, both astronomical experts and the public were able to see the phenomena and be impressed by the predictive power of the new astronomy. Wikipedia will tell you that this is known as Halley’s Eclipse, after Edmond Halley, who produced accurate predictions of its timing and an easily-read map of the eclipse’s path. Halley did not live to see the confirmation of his predictions of a returning comet – a 1759 triumph for the Newtonian system – but h...