What the Solar eclipse looks like if one is on the Moon: scientists share interesting facts

Very soon, on Monday, April 8, there will be a solar eclipse that will be visible to the people of the United States. They will observe a halo of light around the dark disk of the Moon as the Earth, the Sun, and our satellite line up.

The eclipse will be visible from several angles: from the Earth and directly from the Moon. Shannon Schmoll, director of the Abrams Planetarium at the University of Michigan, explained what this phenomenon might look like for astronauts.

If you were an astronaut who landed on the night side of the Moon, you would be able to see a solar eclipse from the outside.

What a solar eclipse looks like from the Moon

The inhabitants of the satellite would see a circular shadow moving across the Earth's surface at a speed of about 2,400 kilometers per hour.

On Monday, April 8, it will first appear in the Pacific Ocean, then make landfall in Mazatlan, and then move diagonally across Texas to Maine and off the coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean to disappear. This path is called the path of totality.

Solar eclipse on the Moon

Surprisingly enough, solar eclipses also occur on the Moon, but they look completely different from those on Earth. In particular, because the Sun is hiding not behind the Moon but behind the Earth.

Our planet, which is much larger than the Moon, casts a shadow on the satellite in a special way. This was explained by astrophysicist and doctoral candidate Alfredo Carpineti

The shadow of the Earth is divided into a total shadow and a penumbral shadow. A partial eclipse will occur soon. From the late evening of Sunday, March 24, to the early hours of Monday, the full Moon will be visible from Earth as it loses its luster.

Astronauts, if they were on a satellite at the time, would be able to see either a total or a partial eclipse, depending on their location.

However, when a total eclipse occurs on the Moon, the event is spectacular. All sunlight coming directly from the Sun is blocked, but the shadow cast by the Earth is not completely black. As the sunlight is scattered in the atmosphere, it takes on a red tint, causing the Moon's silvery surface to glow this color.

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