Friday, 27 May 2011

earth - What will a lunar eclipse look like from moon?

During a lunar eclipse on Earth, the Sun would be eclipsed by the Earth as seen from the Moon:



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What this animation does not show is the corona around the Sun (which would be partially visible when the sun has been occulted) and the reddish ring of light that would encircle the Earth due to the sunlight refracted by the atmosphere of the Earth.



Unlike a solar eclipse as seen on Earth, the stars are always visible since there is virtually no atmosphere on the Moon. Of course, until the Sun is totally occulted, it would be hard to see stars close to the Sun and the solar corona due to the brightness of the Sun. Furthermore, the Earth is 4 times as large as the Moon and so would cover most of the corona (or possibly all of the corona if the eclipse is central).

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