Total Solar Eclipse: A Rare Event?

Curt Bright Author

08/14/2017 Added

617 Plays

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The Earth and sun do a never-ending dance around the solar system, but once in a while the moon cuts in. University of Nebraska Physics graduate students, Karl Ahrendsen and Andrew Vikartofsky explain how often this happens.

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[00:00:00.106](uptempo music)
[00:00:03.026]Pop quiz, Earthlings.
[00:00:04.121]How often do total solar eclipses happen?
[00:00:06.961]About every year and a half?
[00:00:08.462]About every 50 years?
[00:00:09.673]Or about every 200 years?
[00:00:11.588]The correct answer is
[00:00:12.889](bell dinging) about every year and a half.
[00:00:17.790]But, you have to remember that
[00:00:18.680]eclipses can take place nearly anywhere on the planet.
[00:00:21.486]Any one particular point on the Earth
[00:00:23.193]may experience a total solar eclipse
[00:00:25.163]only every few hundred years.
[00:00:27.817]In fact, there hasn't been a total solar eclipse
[00:00:30.410]anywhere in the continental US in nearly 40 years.
[00:00:33.980]Groovy.
[00:00:34.813](rock music)
[00:00:38.347]So, for the 2017, eclipse, how long
[00:00:40.048]do we have to wait to see another one in the US?
[00:00:42.369]It turns out we won't have to wait very long.
[00:00:44.613]The next US eclipse is only seven years from now in 2024.
[00:00:48.056]But, you'll have to leave Nebraska to see that one.
[00:00:50.486]Okay, I call shotgun.
[00:00:52.083]You can't call shotgun seven years from now.
[00:00:54.452]Can, too.
[00:00:55.285]I just did.
[00:00:56.118](uptempo music)

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Total Solar Eclipse: A Rare Event?

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