solar-eclipse – FlatEarth.ws

Sunrays are Practically Parallel, but not Perfectly Parallel

The sun emits sunrays in every direction. But as the sun is very far, the sun rays that reach us are practically parallel. From Earth, any two sun rays form a maximum angle of ~0.53°. Sun rays are practically parallel, but not perfectly parallel.

For most practical purposes, we can assume sun rays are parallel for simplification. But in other cases, the small angle is critical to the problem & we need to take it into account.

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Earthshine Shows the Moon Obscuring the Sun During a Total Solar Eclipse

During a total solar eclipse, the Moon’s side facing Earth does not receive sunlight but still receives light reflected from Earth’s surface. The phenomenon is called Earthshine and can be captured using a camera with a long exposure.

Flat-Earthers demand visual evidence of the Moon blocking the Sun during a solar eclipse. Earthshine provides this visual evidence & shows that the Moon is blocking the Sun.

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Dark Part of the Moon & Its Visibility During the Day

Black is a color that results from the absence of light. A dark or black object emits practically no light. It does not emit “black light.”

Flat-Earthers claim the dark part of the moon should appear black during the day. In reality, they fail to understand that black is caused by the lack of light, not by the emission of “black light.”

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Islamic Rituals and Spherical Earth

Many Islamic rituals rely on the observations of astronomical events. Presently, many such observations are supplanted by calculations involving the knowledge that Earth is a sphere. These calculations give the same consistent results as direct observations on all locations on Earth for several centuries already. The fact confirms that Earth is indeed a sphere.

Some Muslims believe in flat Earth and then try to integrate the belief that Earth is flat into their religion. It results in an interesting phenomenon that they perform their religious rituals using the results of spherical Earth calculations but have severe difficulties accepting the fact. It can result in a spectacular cognitive dissonance after being made aware of it.

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Flat Earth Dome Model

The “Flat Earth Dome Model” (walter.bislins.ch/FED) is an app created by a fellow flat Earth debunker, Walter Bislin. The app attempts to map observed reality to the flat Earth model. Lines in the app portray how light rays must have traveled if Earth were flat. They demonstrate that light must bend in a physically impossible way if Earth were flat, disproving a flat Earth.

Videos of the app are circulating in flat-Earth communities, and flat-Earthers fail to understand what the app is showing. They incorrectly assume the app “proves” a flat Earth when in reality, it thoroughly disproves the flat Earth model.

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The Saros Cycle and Saros Series

The Saros is a period of 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours between related eclipses. The eclipses with the same Saros cycle are classified into a Saros series which is numbered for identification.

Flat-Earthers claim the usage of the Babylonian term Saros “proves” that eclipses are predicted using ancient Babylonian technology. In reality, the Saros is now used to classify related eclipses. For example, the solar eclipse on August 21, 2017 is the 22nd member out of 77 in the Solar Saros 145.

The term Saros was first used in association with eclipse by Edmond Halley in 1691. The Babylonians never used the term Saros to describe eclipses. And the numbering system of the Saros series was created by G. van den Bergh in 1955.

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Saros Cycle and Prediction of Eclipses

Saros is a period of 6585⅓ days separating the occurrence of two eclipses. One Saros after an eclipse, a similar eclipse will occur. The eclipses that belong to the same cycle are grouped in a Saros Series.

Flat-Earthers claim that we can only predict eclipses using the Saros Cycle. In reality, it is impossible to determine many characteristics of an eclipse from its Saros Cycle alone.

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Orbital Inclination: The Reason an Eclipse Does Not Occur Every Month

The plane of the Moon’s orbit around Earth does not coincide with the plane of Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The two orbital planes form an angle of 5.145°. This is the reason an eclipse does not occur every month.

Flat-Earthers claim an eclipse should occur every month, but it does not, and they use it to discredit the science. In reality, they are unaware of the inclinations of the orbits.

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Predicting Eclipses Does Not Require the Saros Cycle or NASA’s Involvement

Using the current computing power, predicting eclipses is usually done iteratively. We determine the position of the Sun and the Moon at a time and calculate their elongation to determine if an eclipse happens. This same procedure is then repeated many times, each for a different time.

Flat-Earthers insist that nobody can predict eclipses from the position of the Sun and the Moon. They incorrectly believe NASA used the ancient Saros cycle to predict eclipses by calculating the interval between eclipses. A tiny Python script can easily debunk it.

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Apparent Size of the Sun & the Moon

The Sun and the Moon appear about the same size in the sky, but they are not perfectly the same size, and their sizes are not constant because their orbits are not perfectly circular.

Flat-Earthers claim it is too much of a coincidence that the Sun is perfectly 400× larger than the Moon and perfectly 400× farther, making them appear perfectly the same size. In reality, the Sun and the Moon are not perfectly the same size in the sky.

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Eastward Direction of the Path of a Solar Eclipse

The path of a solar eclipse moves eastward because the Moon moves in its orbit faster than the motion of the observer due to Earth’s rotation. The path is influenced more by the Moon’s linear speed, not its angular speed.

The Moon rises from the east and moves westward. Flat-Earthers incorrectly claim if the Moon moves westward, then its shadow should also move westward. In reality, the Moon’s shadow moves across the Earth, not around it. The path is influenced more by the Moon’s linear speed, not angular speed, as in the case of the Moon’s motion across the sky.

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Solar Eclipse: Length of the Umbra & Earth-Moon Distance

The distances to the Sun and the Moon are 149,600,000 km and 384,400 km. These figures are average values, and the actual values are around these averages. In a solar eclipse, the actual distances determine whether a total or annular solar eclipse occurs.

Flat-Earthers calculated the geometry of a solar eclipse using these average distances and discovered the umbra does not reach Earth’s surface. They wrongly concluded that an eclipse should not occur. In reality, the numbers are only averages, not the real values. And if the umbra does not reach Earth’s surface, it will still produce an annular solar eclipse.

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Umbra, Penumbra, and Antumbra in an Eclipse Diagram

Light generally travels in a straight line. We can use this property of light to determine the umbra, penumbra, and antumbra part of a shadow by drawing lines from the edges of the light source toward and past that of the occluding object.

Flat-Earthers regard the lines in an eclipse diagram as a violation of the fact that a light source emits light in every direction. In reality, the lines are there only to determine the boundaries of the shadow’s regions in an eclipse diagram.

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Sunlight Creates Umbral Shadow Smaller than the Object Casting the Shadow

The sun is a huge light source. It is larger than anything on Earth. As a result, the umbral part of a shadow formed by sunlight will always be smaller than the object casting the shadow.

Flat-Earthers assert that a shadow cannot be smaller than the object casting the shadow. They would use that to “disprove” the scientific explanation about the occurrence of a solar eclipse. In reality, it is not difficult to demonstrate that the umbral part of a shadow can be smaller than the object casting the shadow, especially if the light source is the sun.

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Total Lunar Eclipse, Drawn to Scale

Any diagram showing two or more celestial bodies is almost never drawn in the correct scale. The reason is that in most cases, any two celestial bodies are spaced too far away relative to their sizes. It is just not possible to draw them in the correct scale and still effectively describes what we want to explain. We don’t have much choice other than drawing them not to scale.

The perpetrators of flat-Earth disseminate the allegations that the diagrams were drawn not to scale because of evil intentions, and not because of legitimate technical reasons. Some people don’t understand this and fell victim to flat-Earth indoctrination.

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