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Celestial line-up

The two most commonly known eclipses are solar and lunar. Earth revolves around the Sun. The Moon revolves around Earth. The Moon takes a month to complete a revolution; Earth takes a year. Sometimes these three bodies end up in a straight line and cause an eclipse.

Two conditions have to be met for a total solar eclipseAn eclipse in which our view of the Sun/Moon is totally blocked.—one in which our view of the Sun is completely blocked. The Sun, Moon, and Earth must lie in a perfectly straight line, and the Moon must be a certain distance from Earth to cover the Sun. When these conditions are met, the Moon totally blocks our view of the Sun for a period of about seven minutes. If the Moon is too far away from Earth, or if it is not exactly aligned between Earth and the Sun, it will only partially block the Sun, causing a

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1. Introduction
2. Close encounters in the sky
3. Celestial line-up
4. Celestial fireworks
5. Project 1 - Simulating Solar and Lunar Eclipses
6. Project 2 - Phases of the Moon: What does each phase look like?
7. Design Your Own Experiment