03/19/2024
Did you know Arkansas has had some of the best opportunities on Earth to see a total solar eclipse in the last two centuries?
The Natural State? More like the Eclipse State, amiright?
Between 1834 and 2045, total solar eclipses will cover the Sun over some part of Arkansas FOUR TIMES. Two of those eclipses, in 2024 and 2045, will be visible in Hot Springs National Park!
How unusual is it to have such frequent total solar eclipses over the state and specifically, the national park? Quite. This frequency challenges many statistics of eclipses.
Eclipses need the Sun, the Moon, and Earth to align, sending a celestial shadow streaking across the surface of the Earth. On average, about 2.5 solar eclipses take place every year. But less than one third of these are total solar eclipses that include a period of “totality” where the Moon completely obscures the Sun.
In addition, bands of total darkness during an eclipse are narrow, - rarely more than 300 miles wide - typically covering less than 1% of the Earth’s surface.
The relative infrequency of total solar eclipses, combined with the small width of the path of totality, mean that, on average, a random location on Earth can expect to experience a total solar eclipse about once every 375 years.
Hot Springs will experience two 21 years!
Spa City? More like Eclipse City 😎
Explore the paths of past and future eclipses: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEatlas/SEatlas.html #:~:text=It%20is%20also%20helpful%20to%20remember%20several%20rules,and%20hybrid%20eclipses%20are%20always%20in%20italic%20style.
Image/Map: F. Espenak