Solar Treat: Total Eclipse of the Sun July 11

A total solar eclipse on July 11 has the potential to present some ground-based observers a stunning five-minute celestial show, but you did almost have to go to ends of the Earth to try and see it. Solar eclipses happen when the moon gets between the sun and Earth, blotting out some or all of the sun. While the moon's dark cone of shadow will pass more than one-third of the way around the Earth during this solar eclipse, virtually the whole ground track for the event falls over the remote open ocean waters of the South Pacific. Land encounters will be very few and generally far between.

For astronomers, total solar eclipses give an opportunity to observe the pearly white corona, or outer atmosphere, of the sun. They occur when the moon comes between the Earth and the sun, totally obscuring the sun from our persepective. The corona's brightness is only about one-millionth as bright as sunlight, but when the moon totally obscures the visible disk of the sun the corona shines out in magnificent splendor.

we need not wait for an eclipse to watch the corona astronomers use an instrument called the coronagraph, developed in 1930 by the French astronomer, Bernard Lyot to observe the brighter, inner part of the corona. But the beauty and awesomeness of a total eclipse are still matchless and is why some will travel long distances, to remote parts of the earth or on the ocean to experience this glorious spectacle.