>On Aug. 21, 2017, American skywatchers will be treated to a rare and spectacular celestial show — the first total solar eclipse visible from the continental United States in nearly four decades. Next year's "Great American Total Solar Eclipse" will darken skies all the way from Oregon to South Carolina, along a stretch of land about 70 miles (113 kilometers) wide. People who descend upon this "path of totality" for the big event are in for an unforgettable experience, said eclipse expert Jay Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College in Massachusetts.
>A total solar eclipse last darkened soil on the U.S. mainland on Feb. 26, 1979. But August 2017 will mark the first time in 99 years that such an event is "readily available to people from coast to coast," Pasachoff said.
>The fact that total solar eclipses occur at all is a quirk of cosmic geometry. The moon orbits an average of 239,000 miles (384,600 kilometers) from Earth — just the right distance to seem the same size in the sky as the much-larger sun. But most solar eclipses are of the partial variety, in which the moon appears to take a bite out of the sun's disk. Indeed, two to five solar eclipses occur every year on average; total eclipses happen just once every 18 months or so. (Eclipses are relatively rare because the moon's orbit is inclined about 5 degrees relative to that of Earth. If the two bodies orbited in exactly the same plane, a solar eclipse would occur every month, during the moon's "new" phase.)
>Furthermore, the narrow path of totality is often inaccessible to skywatchers — most of Earth is covered by water, after all — so a total solar eclipse that occurs over populated areas is quite special. Indeed, the August 2017 event will be the first one whose totality path lies completely within the United States since 1776, experts have said.
1776
Cross posting from 8/pol/
http://8ch.net/pol/res/8693393.html
http://www.space.com/33797-total-solar-eclipse-2017-guide.html
BLACK SUN, COMING SOON