Top 10 Solar Eclipses of the 2010s
Solar eclipses are rare and spectacular events that most of us seldom get to witness. In fact, it is dangerous to look at one directly without proper eye protection.These eclipses are the most notable of the last decade (2010-2019).
This was the most anticipated natural event of the 2010s and caused so much hype that there were fears of massive traffic and even stampedes. As a result, many were eventually unwilling to gather to watch this once-in-a-lifetime event.
However, many still did gather and watched it, and the next day there were traffic jams, including one in Utah that led to a line of traffic lasting 480 minutes. It managed to be the most-watched eclipse of all time and the first viewed on social media and smartphones.
It was like New Year's Eve and Day, except there were no mandates to stay in one spot much of the day on your feet and suffering. Yet the NASA pages gained a whopping 90 million views while it was live, which is almost 100 million.
What's also crazy was that prior to the eclipse, fake glasses were being sold, which weren't safe to look at the Sun through, and they were deemed counterfeit, causing greater fears. Yet lines to get glasses lasted hours.
This was the first solar eclipse with a path from coast to coast of the U.S. since June 8, 1918 (though there was one in the middle of the U.S. on February 26, 1979). We will have an eclipse for 12 states on April 8, 2024 (total), 10 states on August 12, 2045 (total), along with 9 states on October 14, 2023 (annular), and another 9 states on June 11, 2048.
Occurred over the Middle East, South, and Southeast Asia.
While the 2017 American eclipse is the most notable, to me, the 2019 annular eclipse is the best because it is the first eclipse that I managed to get a photo of, though it's on my Facebook (which I can't show for now). Tough luck for those who want to see what it looks like. I have to admit, the eclipse looks small from my camera.
Visible in Southeast Asia. The 2019 annular eclipse is my first on camera, but this is the first I ever witnessed, with my unaided eyes no less.
I'm sort of lucky that I didn't suffer any eye damage. I covered my eyes or looked away every few moments in between viewings.
Skirted just partially over the Philippines (my home country) and fully over Japan, China, and eventually the Western United States.
Sadly, I didn't see it. It was early in the morning, and I wasn't that interested in eclipses back then.
Took place in Chile and Argentina.
I watched some of the videos online showing the cheering crowds while the eclipse was in progress.
Most of the eclipse was seen over the Western US, Canada, and Alaska.
Visible over Northern Australia and a few Pacific Islands.
Fun Fact: Solar and Lunar eclipses often follow an annual pattern in which one eclipse on the descending node is a total eclipse and descends downward on Earth's solar plane, while the other is an annular eclipse, traveling upward on the ascending node. The ascending node is always 5 saros series numbers ahead of the descending node.
The eclipse types can alternate between nodes as well during the semester (an eclipse semester lasts about 4 years). I have to admit this whole eclipse pattern thing is very complicated.
This was among the longest total solar eclipses of the 2010s at 5 minutes 20 seconds.
Visible on a few islands over the Southeastern Pacific Ocean.
Although I haven't seen it (since I live in California), I heard it was the longest of any solar eclipse for this millennium. Annularity lasted 11 minutes 10.7 seconds, which is an incredibly long time for a solar eclipse since we're familiar with totality or annularity lasting around half or a quarter of that.
It's longer than typical episodes of children's TV series. The Moon was near its absolute farthest point from Earth (known as apogee), which was near its closest point to our Sun (known as perihelion) in their elliptical orbits. Therefore, those in the right locations witnessed a treat that hasn't happened since January 4, 1992 (at 11 minutes 40.9 seconds), and that was the second-longest of the 20th century.
The eclipse of Christmas Eve 1973 was 12 minutes 2.37 seconds and was only surpassed by December 14, 1955, which was a whopping 12 minutes 9.17 seconds and that won't be surpassed until January 14, 3080.