2024-02-03 00:00:00
Not a week goes by without a final discovery being announced to the general public about a new planet, a Milky Way similar to ours or a black hole larger than the previous ones. Just yesterday, it was announced that it had detected an immense body of groundwater on Mars, more than all the drinking water contained in the lakes and rivers of our planet.
So, now imagine the phenomenon of eclipses, while a few centuries ago all kinds of fantastic explanations were proposed for this celestial crossover. Today, thanks to science, “we have better understood the merry-go-round of stars, planets, satellites and their elliptical dances around each other”.
Since the announcement of a new total eclipse of the sun, scheduled for April 8, 2024 around 3:30 p.m., social media has been buzzing. It must be said that we will witness “the most fascinating of cosmic spectacles”. A rare spectacle, “an almost mystical experience”, the last having taken place in Montreal in 1932 and the next will occur in 2106, according to scientists.
The eclipse
The two authors of this accessible work therefore intend to enlighten us on the “incessant merry-go-round of the stars” and to dust off certain acquired facts. Science goes from discovery to discovery, what we learned in school often deserves to be reviewed and corrected.
Our galaxy still has eight planets – there was a time when a ninth was added –, orbiting a large star, the Sun, as well as billions of stars. The Sun-star produces light, coming from nuclear reactions, but the Earth being a planet, it does not produce light. It only reflects the light of the Sun. Same thing with Earth’s satellite, the Moon, which only reflects light from the Sun.
For there to be an eclipse, a combination of circumstances is necessary, that is to say an adequate Earth-Moon-Sun alignment – a sum of astronomical coincidences –, but only a few million lucky people, who will find themselves at the right place. place at the right time, will be able to see this total eclipse. However, “the same configurations of the Earth-Moon-Sun alignment return every 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours”. Some lucky people among us will no doubt be able to enjoy the show.
The other planets
We also learn that the phenomenon of total, partial or annular eclipses is not exclusive to our planet Earth.
We see them on other planets, like on Mars, for example, which also has a natural satellite, Phobos. The various probes launched by NASA on Mars were able to photograph them. As for Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, it has no fewer than 92 satellites.
“Almost every revolution of its satellites produces an eclipse. The phenomenon is so obvious that it can be spotted from Earth using telescopes. »
Understanding the phenomenon of solar eclipses was a long process, because, at the time, we did not have the tools we have today to explain them. Astronomers relied on divine intervention to explain them.
Greek thinkers were pioneers in the study of eclipses and Nicephorus Gregoras, the Byzantine scholar and humanist, was the first to predict the phenomenon, on July 16, 1330, in Constantinople (today Istanbul). The Mayans also had fairly advanced knowledge of astronomy.
Science has sometimes been used for dubious purposes, among others by Christopher Columbus during his stay in Jamaica, the island inhabited by the Arawak people. Hergé was perhaps inspired by one of his hoaxes, say the authors, “when he wrote the scene where Tintin plays the comedy in front of the Incas while taking advantage of a solar eclipse, in his album The Temple of the Sun ».
At the same time, they recall that scientists were condemned by the court of the Inquisition for having questioned the entirely Christian conception of the universe, including Galileo, who was forced to deny his work under penalty of being sent to the stake.
Then came Newton, Halley and Einstein who founded the foundations of modern astronomy.
See you on April 8, when a good part of Montreal will be able to witness a total eclipse of the Sun.
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