2012 Doomsday Predictions

Hubble’s Universe Unfiltered (Episode 8): Goodnight Moon. Here on Earth, the occasional alignments of the Sun and Moon with our planet are greeted with much fanfare. Solar and lunar eclipses are often spectacular sights. However, our solar system undergoes many other more subtle alignments that come under the general name of occultations. From Earth’s ever-changing viewpoint, planets can be occulted by our Moon and other moons can be occulted by their planets. Consider the chances for such occultations on Jupiter, which has four of the seven large moons in the solar system. In this episode, we examine Hubble’s observations of these otherworldly and somewhat poetic events. — Please subscribe to Science & Reason: • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com — Notes – Eclipses of the Sun can be seen from some point on Earth about every 6 months. Total solar eclipses occur, on average, about once every 18 months. The next total solar eclipse is on July 22, 2009, and is visible in India, through China, and across the southwest Pacific Ocean. A great place to get dates, maps, and other info about solar and lunar eclipses is the NASA Eclipse Web Site – The similar apparent size on the sky of our Moon and the Sun does not occur for any of the other large moons of the solar system. For Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, the Sun is much farther away, and therefore much smaller in their skies. The large moons are similar in size to our Moon, though their orbital distances …

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