Yellow like the sun

 

Our sun may be just one of billions, but it is our sun, and our eyes have opened to its light.  Our eyes have seen the moon eclipse the sun with its shadow.

After the eclipse, the moon moves on, approaching full moon again. And we too move on,  with our lives----bills and taxes, spring cleaning, projects and plans. 

These are the increasing days of daylight We have gained over 4 hours and 33 minutes of light since the winter solstice!   Sunrises will be before 6am, with dawn before 5:30am.  Sunsets are after 7:30 pm. 

 These are the days of dandelions, their yellow faces like the sun...

Eclipse Watch 2024

 This is a diagram of solar and lunar eclipses.  Eclipses don't happen every day, but they are predictable.  People  have known about the April 8 solar eclipse years before the Great American Eclipse of August 21, 2017. 

Why was the 2017 eclipse so special? According to Wikipedia---

The August 2017 eclipse was the first with a path of totality crossing the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the U.S. since the solar eclipse of 1918. Also, its path of totality made landfall exclusively within the United States, making it the first such eclipse since the country's declaration of independence in 1776.

Do you remember the Post Office issued commemorative Eclipse stamps?  Do you remember then-President Donald Trump watching the eclipse on the White House balcony? No eclipse glasses for him!

It was a hot, hot summer day.  

In a way, the 2017 eclipse was a prelude to 2024---this time, the path of totality will be wider, extending  from Mexico to Canada.  The totality phase of the April 8 eclipse is expected to last twice as long as it did in 2017. 

The Chicago area will experience around  94% totality on Monday, April 8, 2024.  There will be over 4 minutes of darkness. 

Once again, Carbondale IL will be in the path of  100%  totality, like the  eclipse in  2017.  Millions of people will be going to some place along the path of totality---including  big cities  like Dallas, Little Rock, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo and Burlington, Vt.  

There will be traffic,  cell-phone disruptions,  Security and National Guard are on call.  Many schools are closing for the day. Motels and Airbnbs are all booked up already.  

Oh yes, there will be money being made that day--t-shirts and souvenir mugs that are temperature sensitive. Magnets, key chains, water bottles,  and more.

Things have changed since 2017.  That was before the plague, the 2020 election, January 6, 2021, wars in Ukraine and Gaza.  Those are the concerns of men. The cycles of the eclipses go on.

You can read more about the upcoming April 8 eclipse at Astronomy.com. 

Yes, they can predict eclipses,  but the weather is more uncertain. Will there be clouds along the path on April 8?   We'll see....

You can watch a live stream of the eclipse at NASA.com.

Also, at EarthSky