What Happens During A Solar Eclipse?
Very little happens for the first one and a quarter hours, while the shadow of the moon slowly moves across the face of the sun, which gradually takes on the shape of a crescent. As the crescent grows very thin, however, dusk begins to fall. Then, suddenly, the sun disappears! The bright-blue sky “vanishes,” the temperature drops, darkness descends, the stars appear and the total phase of the eclipse begins. Once again, the moon has blotted out the sun! Next the corona, the sun’s gaseous outer envelope, can be seen as a beautiful white halo about twice the size of the sun and surrounding the dark disk of the moon. For a few seconds at the beginning and end of the total phase, there appears to be a string of tiny beads around the sun. This phenomenon is caused by light shining through the valleys of the moon. While the brilliance of the day sky is decreased enormously, the general appearance of the landscape is similar to that under a full moon. It is not completely dark. At about the m
