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Solar eclipse
Name: Doris Kober, Jennifer Bernahl and James D Miks
Status: Other
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
Why are we only warned not to look at the Sun during an eclipse, because of
the damage it could cause your retina? What is the difference from any
ordinary day? Why was the eclipse or May 10, 1995 not as dark as usual?
Replies:
It is almost impossible to stare at the uneclipsed Sun long enough to do
damage to the retina; our reflexes make us shut our eyes and turn away. So
there is no real need for a warning about doing this. With the recent
annular eclipse, though: at places where there was only a ring of Sun
around the Moon, that ring may not have been bright enough to make a person
look away before damage occurred (perhaps a ring-shaped burn on the reti-
nas). That was the reason for all the warnings. In a true total solar
eclipse, ALL of the Sun is blocked by the Moon, and at totality it IS safe
to look directly at it. (By the way, there will not be a total solar
eclipse visible in the United States until the year 2017.)
The May 10, 1994 solar eclipse was what is called an annular eclipse (the
Latin word "annulus" means "ring"). The Moon has an elliptical orbit, so
sometimes it is closer to the Earth, sometimes farther away. For this
eclipse, it was in the "farther away" part of its orbit, so the Moon's disk
was not able to completely block the Sun. Even at places where the eclipse
had maximum coverage (producing the "ring of Sun" around the Moon's disk),
that ring was enough to keep the sky fairly bright.
RC Winther
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Update: June 2012
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