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Next Solar Eclipses Until 2020
Some Solar Eclipse Definitions
- Solar Eclipse: Happens when the moon is between the sun and the earth so the Sun is completely or partially blocked.
- Total Solar Eclipse: The Sun is almost completely blocked because the moon completely blocks it. A very faint corona is still visible.
- Annular Solar Eclipse: The Sun appears smaller then the Sun and so there is a very bright ring around the Moon.
- Partial Solar Eclipse: The sun is partially blocked from view by the moon.
- Hybrid Solar Eclipse: A cross between a total and annular eclipses. Depending where you are on the Earth you’ll be able to see either a total or annular eclipse.
- Solar Eclipse Magnitude: The ratio of the visual size of the moon compared to the apparent size of the sun.
|
Eclipse Date
|
Type
|
Magnitude
|
Central Duration
|
Regions
|
Google Link
|
|
2008 Aug 01
|
Total
|
1.039
|
02m27s
|
Canada, Greenland, Siberia, Mongolia, China
|
|
|
2009 Jan 26
|
Annular
|
0.928
|
07m54s
|
India, Sumatra, Borneo
|
|
|
2009 Jul 22
|
Total
|
1.08
|
06m39s
|
India, Nepal, China, Central Pacific
|
|
|
2010 Jan 15
|
Annular
|
0.919
|
11m08s
|
Africa, India, Malymar, China
|
|
|
2010 Jul 11
|
Total
|
1.058
|
05m20s
|
Pacific, Easter Island, Chile, Argentina
|
|
|
2011 Jan 04
|
Partial
|
0.858
|
-
|
||
|
2011 Jun 01
|
Partial
|
0.601
|
-
|
||
|
2011 Jul 01
|
Partial
|
0.097
|
-
|
||
|
2011 Nov 25
|
Partial
|
0.905
|
-
|
||
|
2012 May 20
|
Annular
|
0.944
|
05m46s
|
China, Japan, Pacific, Western US
|
|
|
2012 Nov 13
|
Total
|
1.05
|
04m02s
|
Australia, South Pacific
|
|
|
2013 May 10
|
Annular
|
0.954
|
06m03s
|
Australia, Solomon Islands, Central Pacific
|
|
|
2013 Nov 03
|
Hybrid
|
1.016
|
01m40s
|
Atlantic, Central Africa
|
|
|
2014 Apr 29
|
Annular
|
0.987
|
-
|
Antartica
|
|
|
2014 Oct 23
|
Partial
|
0.811
|
-
|
||
|
2015 Mar 20
|
Total
|
1.045
|
02m47s
|
North Atlantic, Faeroe Islands, Svalbard
|
|
|
2015 Sep 13
|
Partial
|
0.787
|
-
|
||
|
2016 Mar 09
|
Total
|
1.045
|
04m09s
|
Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, Pacific
|
|
|
2016 Sep 01
|
Annular
|
0.974
|
03m06s
|
Atlantic, Central Africa, Madagascar, India
|
|
|
2017 Feb 26
|
Annular
|
0.992
|
00m44s
|
Pacific, Chile, Argentina, Atlantic, Africa
|
|
|
2017 Aug 21
|
Total
|
1.031
|
02m40s
|
North Pacific, US, South Atlantic
|
|
|
2018 Feb 15
|
Partial
|
0.599
|
-
|
||
|
2018 Jul 13
|
Partial
|
0.337
|
-
|
||
|
2018 Aug 11
|
Partial
|
0.737
|
-
|
||
|
2019 Jan 06
|
Partial
|
0.715
|
-
|
||
|
2019 Jul 02
|
Total
|
1.046
|
04m33s
|
South Pacific, Chile, Argentina
|
|
|
2019 Dec 26
|
Annular
|
0.97
|
03m40s
|
Suadi Arabia, India, Sumatra, Borneo
|
|
|
2020 Jun 21
|
Annular
|
0.994
|
00m38s
|
Central Africa, South Asia, China, Pacific
|
|
|
2020 Dec 14
|
Total
|
1.025
|
02m10s
|
South Pacific, Chile, Argentina, South Atlantic
|
Next Solar Eclipse Widget
I’ve been tinkering around with php and decided to make a tool which shows what date the next solar eclipse is on.
Heres an example of what happens when you run the code:
I’m thinking about changing it to be a bit more graphic. Maybe I should just make it a widget that says “Next Eclipse: 69 Days” in an image. You could click it to show more details like in the above example. What do you guys think?
Oh by the way, if you want to put this widget onto your site feel free to. Just use the following code:
<iframe src = "http://www.esolargarden.com/eclipses/eclipses.php" FRAMEBORDER = "0" name = "eclipses" id = "eclipses"></iframe ><a href=”http://www.esolargarden.com”>By e Solar Garden</a>
Solar Power Glossary of Definitions
- Solar Power: energy that has been converted into useable electricity.
- Solar Energy: light and heat from the sun.
- Solar Updraft Tower: power plant which uses a greenhouse type structure to heat air. The air then rises and escapes at the top of the tower. The air moves through turbines which then produce the electric power.
- Solar Pond: a pool of water which is able to store solar energy.
- Thermogenerator: a converter that can change heat directly into electricity.
- Greenhouse: a building created for the purpose of trapping heat so as to allow plants to grow even in cold weather.
- Solar House: can help keep the interior cool while reducing the need for air conditioning.
- Solar Power Tower: a power plant that focuses the sun into a tower where it can boil water for use in steam turbines.
- Solar Trough: a power plant that uses an array of parabolic mirrors which concentrate light down a Dewar tube. Heat is transfered from the absorber tube to steam water which turns a turbine.
- Thermal Energy Storage: a technology that allows energy to be stored in the form of heat for later use.
- Solar Chimney: a way of improving the ventilation of buildings by using passive solar energy.
- Zettajoules: 4.2 Joules equals a calorie, a Zettajoule is equal to 10^21Joules.
- Terawatt: A measurement of electricity. A terawatt is one billion kilowatts.
- Solar Panel: A panel of small converters which change solar energy to solar power.
- Renewable Energy: energy that doesn’t deplete the world’s resources.
- Clean Energy: energy which doesn’t pollute the atmosphere.
Facts About Solar Energy
Definition: energy in the form of light and heat. Solar energy allows life, and creates the weather/climate conditions we have on our earth.
Interesting Facts
- Power Used: if we used 0.001744% of the available solar energy on earth it would meet current global consumption.
- Greenhouses: romans were the first to build a green house. These allowed Roman’s to grow cucumbers all year round.
- Disinfection: exposing bottles of water to between 6 hours and two days (depends upon weather) can disinfect water. The world health organization recommends this method.
- Energy Weapon: Archimedes used polished shields to focus sunlight and force a Roman fleet away. Its still under debate, see this wikipedia page for details.
- Da Vinci: foretold the coming of the solar energy industry; he had an idea that we ought to use solar power (via concave mirrors) for water heating.
- Oil companies: some oil companies predict a huge increase in the use of solar energy. Shell oil expects we will rely on it for around 50% of our energy needs by the mid 21st century.
- Solar Powered Airplane: a solar powered plane traversed the USA in 1990 using no fuel.
Math Facts
- Energy needs: about 15% of the world is without electricity
- America’s consumption: the USA uses around 25% of the world’s energy.
- Solar energy received: The earth receives 174 PW at a constant rate.
- Amount reduced: the atmosphere reflects 6% of the solar energy & absorbs 16%. Clouds & dust reflect 20%, diffuse 20% and absorb 3% of the energy.
- Total energy absorbed by earth per year: 3850 zettajoules per year.
- Energy consumption per year: 0.0567 zettajoules
- Solar panels generally convert: About 15% of the incoming solar energy into electricity.
General Facts
- The word: solar power is quite similar to solar energy however it refers more to conversion of energy into electricity.
What is solar power?
Basically solar power is a method of converting light into a useful form of energy. This energy is then used in quite a few different ways. One of the more interesting ongoing forms of solar energy use is the development and
implementation of solar power for production of electricity. This is interesting as demonstrated by the picture on the right. Current global consumption of power sits at around 1.5 terawatts. Estimated wind power creation sits at 370 terawatts, and solar power is at 89,000 terawatts. Or to be blunt, isn’t that yellow box a bit larger than the red one?
With raising prices for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, alternative energy sources are getting the attention they have long deserved. Newer forms of solar panels are able to convert higher percentages of incoming solar insolation into electricity.
A simple method:
A solar cell converts light into electricity using a photoelectric effect (more or less converts light into electrons). By using a semiconductor made with a substance such as silicone, it is able to absorb light. To be more exact light is absorbed by the silicon and focused within. Electrons are then knocked loose because of the energy involved. By then placing metallic leads at either end of the semiconductor we can gather electricity then use it.
There are many new types of solar gathering devices. New gathering devices are being created all the time. A rather interesting implementation of this is Nanosolar which is able to literally print entire sheets of solar cells.