On Sunday, May 20th, the Moon will pass in front of the sun, transforming sunbeams across the Pacific side of Earth into fat crescents and thin rings of light.
Eclipse-lovers haven't experienced a "central" solar eclipse from U.S. soil in nearly two decades (1994, to be exact). But those of you out west will soon have a good chance of seeing one on May 20, 2012, when the path of an annular eclipse covers a wide swath from northern California to the Texas Panhandle.
May's event is called an annular or "ring" eclipse because the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun but will cover only 88% of it. The undersize lunar disk results because the eclipse occurs just one day after the Moon reaches apogee, the most distant point in its orbit around Earth. So the black lunar silhouette will appear completely surrounded by the Sun's disk from a generously wide path that's at least 150 miles (240 km) across. Astronomers refer to this kind of incomplete lunar shadow as an antumbra.
On May 20-21, 2012 an annular eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor along Earth's northern Hemisphere -- beginning in eastern Asia, crossing the North Pacific Ocean, and ending in the western United States. A partial eclipse will be visible from a much larger region covering East Asia, North Pacific, North America and Greenland.
The joint JAXA/NASA Hinode mission will observe the eclipse and provide images and movies that will be available on the NASA website at http://www.nasa.gov/sunearth. Due to Hinode’s orbit around the Earth, Hinode will actually observe 4 separate partial eclipses." Scientists often use an eclipse to help calibrate the instruments on the telescope by focusing in on the edge of the moon as it crosses the sun and measuring how sharp it appears in the images. An added bonus: Hinode's X-ray Telescope will be able to provide images of the peaks and valleys of the lunar surface.
The orbits for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), and the joint ESA/NASA mission the Solar Heliospheric Observatory will not provide them with a view of the eclipse.
The next solar eclipse will be the total solar eclipse on November 13, 2012.
Read More On :
NASA - Hinode Mission to Capture Annular Solar Eclipse This Weekend
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SkyandTelescope - May 20th's Annular Eclipse of the Sun
Photo Gallery [around the world]2012 Annular Solar Eclipse
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