The date of the total solar eclipse and the procedures that must be followed when this occurs
On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will occur, turning day into night. The eclipse will occur in Egypt, and its duration will last for five hours and a few minutes. An eclipse the likes of which we have not seen in 375 years, so we must all prepare. This news is widely spread on social media platforms, and this is all wrong. In this article, we will learn what an eclipse is.
- An eclipse is an astronomical phenomenon that occurs when sunlight is blocked from the Earth by the moon.
- This means that the moon remains present in the middle of the earth and the sun.
- Although the moon is much smaller in size than the sun, for us, the two are almost the same size because the moon is much closer to the sun, which makes the moon hide the entire disk of the sun.
- The Moon makes a complete turn around the Earth almost every month, and each turn at some point remains between the Earth and the sun. Why do we not see this eclipse phenomenon every month?
The answer to this question is that the moon does not rotate at the same level as the orbit in which the Earth revolves around the sun. The level of the orbit in which the moon moves is different from the level of the orbit in which the Earth moves by about five degrees.
- For this reason, when the moon revolves around the earth, it is either higher than the level of the sun or lower than the level of the sun and therefore does not obscure the sun.
- But there are two points where the moon remains at the same level as the sun and the earth, which are called the two lunar nodes, and they are the two points where the eclipse occurs.
- But of course, eclipses are not one type or one condition, meaning the moon can come at this point of the lunar node, but it remains on the side, not facing the sun, so no eclipse occurs at all.
- In the second case, it remains facing the sun, but indirectly, and a partial eclipse or annular eclipse occurs.
- Or it remains directly facing the sun, so a total eclipse occurs and blocks all the light coming from the sun, and this is the eclipse that all social media is talking about.
The full solar eclipse date and the necessary actions to take on that day
The important question is whether an eclipse will happen or not. The answer is: Indeed, on April 8, 2024, there will be an eclipse and a total eclipse as well, but not in the way that people talk about it on social media.
We will not see this eclipse at all in Egypt, nor will we feel it, nor will any country in the entire continent of Africa or the continent of Asia see this eclipse, and this is because solar eclipses usually appear in specific places on the Earth.
When the moon blocks the sun's rays, it casts its shadow onto a certain area of the Earth because the size of the moon's shadow is not the size of the entire Earth, and the part on which the shadow falls remains in the form of a thin circular path due to the Earth's rotational movement.
The date of the total solar eclipse and the countries where it occurs
As for the eclipse that will occur next April 8, it will only appear in Mexico, America, Canada, and a small part of Western Europe, and of course, with accurate maps, astronomers can know the areas in which the eclipse will occur, and it will remain calculated in meters as well. Egypt is not among the countries included in the eclipse.
Solar eclipses can occur two or three times in one year, and there have even been years in which five solar eclipses occurred. Before that, for example, in the year 1935, there were solar eclipses in January, February, June, July, and December, five eclipses in one year.
This year, 2024, there will be a second eclipse that will occur in October, and it will be an annular eclipse, meaning this year there will be an eclipse twice. Even if we ignore the second eclipse, which is partial or annular, and focus only on total eclipses, then the total eclipse will not be repeated every 375 years.
- The last total eclipse that occurred in the world was last year on April 20, 2023, and there is a total eclipse that will occur in Egypt in the year 2027, specifically on August 2, 2027, at noon.
- Anyone who witnesses this event can follow it very clearly from Upper Egypt and even in Cairo and the rest of the governorates. The clarity rate will range from 95% to 97%.
- As for 375 years, the whole story is that astronomical calculations say that for an eclipse to occur in the same location with the same coordinates, it takes 375 years.
Since the eclipse will remain in the form of a strip or path, and the path this time will pass through certain coordinates inside America, the same coordinates will be repeated during a solar eclipse. This will require 375 years, and this means that the number 375 years is completely ineffective.
- The news spread on social media, saying that this eclipse will last for more than five hours or three continuous days, has no basis in truth.
- The total duration of any eclipse on average ranges from a few seconds to seven minutes.
- The longest total eclipse that occurred in the 21st century was the one that occurred on July 22, 2009, and lasted for six minutes and 39 seconds.
The reason for this news on social media may be that people are confused about the period during which the world will remain dark due to the eclipse and the period that the eclipse journey takes as it travels from one country to another. This means, for example, that the upcoming April 8 eclipse will have darkness lasting on average for four minutes.
But the eclipse itself will continue to move from one place to another during the eclipse strip that we talked about in a journey that will take two hours and 33 minutes. During this period, it will move from Mexico to America to the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.
This does not mean that the world will remain dark all this time in one place. In short, the eclipse that everyone was talking about will not happen in Egypt, nor will it be repeated for 375 years, nor will the world be dark for five hours.
The necessary measures to be taken when an eclipse occurs
If a solar eclipse occurs in the country you are in, there is something you must take into account, which is that looking directly at the sun at the time of the eclipse harms the retina and may cause, God forbid, blindness.
This is because in the case of an eclipse, the visible light that remains coming from the sun is very little, and at the same time, infrared and ultraviolet rays emerge from the sun that harm the eyes.
By the way, these rays come out on normal days, but the idea is that on normal days, sunlight makes the pupil of the eye very narrow, and it hurts us if we look into it at all, but in the case of an eclipse, there is no visible light that affects the pupil of the eye, and therefore we can look at the sun without anything preventing us.
Because the world is dark at the time of the eclipse, the pupil remains dilated, and because of this, the eye receives a lot of harmful rays, which we do not feel. Therefore, when we come to observe the sun during the eclipse, we must use the appropriate glasses.
