A visual treat is in line for sky gazers and astronomy enthusiasts as it is the year of eclipses. This year five celestial events are in line.
However, Indians will not be able to see all of them. Only two of these five eclipses will be visible in India.
The celestial events will begin on March 9. On this day, the first eclipse of the year will be seen. This event will be a total solar eclipse, which may be visible in some parts of Northeast India.
A penumbral lunar eclipse will follow it on March 23. However, this event will not be visible in India.
After a gap of four months, another penumbral lunar eclipse will be seen on August 18. A few days later, on September 1, an annual solar eclipse will occur. Unfortunately, Indians will once again miss both these astronomical events.
For the ones who do not know what a penumbral lunar eclipse is, it is seen when the Sun, Moon and the Earth are all aligned in a straight line. Thus, the earth blocks the sun’s light that directly reaches the moon’s surface to some extent and covers a small part of the moon with the shadow’s outer part. This phenomenon is known as the Penumbra.
The last eclipse will occur on September 16, which will also be a penumbral lunar eclipse. The good news is that this particular event will be visible to people in India. In 2015, four eclipses were seen out of which one was a partial lunar eclipse, one was a total solar eclipse, and the other two were total lunar eclipses.
Image Credit: mysticscientist.com
