June Eclipse Season 2020: Earth to witness Annular Solar Eclipse & another Lunar Eclipse

For all the lovers of everything about space and fans of astronomy, there is some great news in the skies. The months of June and July in 2020 have brought forward the Eclipse Season 2020. The following weeks will see three eclipses taking place.

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The Eclipse Season 2020

An eclipse season comes after six months or slightly less than that. This eclipse season lasts for a little over a month. 2020 will see two seasons. While one will be occurring in June, another will come in the month of December. The June month will witness one solar eclipse while two lunar eclipses. The following are more details about the three eclipses to occur.

The Solar Eclipse

The solar eclipse will happen because of a new moon occurring on June 21 at 2.41 am EDT, which means it will occur around 11.30 to 12 PM IST. The moon will be eclipsing the sun, with its disk appearing slightly smaller than the sun. It will not be able to cover the entire sun but create a ring of fire, which means a narrow ring of the sun will be seen. Thus, this eclipse is termed as an annular eclipse.

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As per a space daily site, the point of greatest eclipse will occur over Uttarkhand in India. This means that the moon will come to closest to completely fitting over the sun. Though, it will miss slightly, thus creating the ring of fire.

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The Lunar Eclipses

The first lunar eclipse of the June Eclipse Season 2020 occurred on June 5. There was just a slight darkening of the moon as only the seven-tenth of the moon was under the range of the eclipse. This lunar eclipse was only visible in central and east Africa, Eastern Europe, western and central Asia, most of Indonesia and Australia.

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The other lunar eclipse will be following the Annular solar eclipse and come on the night of July 4 or July 5. It is also a non-event moon eclipse as less than fourth-tenths of moon’s region will be covered. This is not again enough to create the darkening effect on the moon for the people to look at and witness an eclipse. As per the site, the Central and Eastern portions of North America will be turned toward the Moon while the eclipse will occur. However, there is a rare chance that they will be able to see anything.

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There is no reason to despair, however, as 2020 has yet another Eclipse Season waiting in December. December will be witnessing a Penumbral lunar eclipse on November 30. Not just that, a total solar eclipse will occur on December 14. This is will be the last eclipse in 2020. 

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