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The total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 was yesterday, and I was fortunate enough to see 3 minutes of its totality! Since phone cameras are TERRIBLE at taking pictures of awesome stuff like this, I recreated what I remembered seeing in Krita. See that reddish spot on the lower side of the sun? That's called a solar prominence, and it's a huge loop of blazing hot plasma that the Sun shoots out at peaks of solar activity like recently, and it's BIGGER than EARTH. I could see it quite clearly from down here, 93 million miles away. As for the light off to the sides, I think that happened just because of the way the atmosphere scatter the Sun's light.

If you aren't quite sure what causes a total solar eclipse, don't worry, they're really cool, and not at all dangerous (so long as you DON'T look directly at the Sun)! Every once in a while, the moon in its orbit passes in front of the Sun. Since the Moon is small, but close, and the Sun is large, but far away, they appear to be very similar sizes. In the case of a total solar eclipse, the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, almost completely hiding the Sun from our eyes down here. It's safe to look at right then, but once the Sun starts to shine from behind the Moon as it moves on, it's time to put on your solar eclipse glasses! They'll protect your eyes from the Sun.

I hope you got to see this, because the next total solar eclipse in the U.S. will occur in 2044. Who knows what I will have accomplished, or what YOU will have accomplished by then?

Description
The total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 was yesterday, and I was fortunate enough to see 3 minutes of its totality! Since phone cameras are TERRIBLE at taking pictures of awesome stuff like this, I recreated what I remembered seeing in Krita. See that reddish spot on the lower side of the sun? That's called a solar prominence, and it's a huge loop of blazing hot plasma that the Sun shoots out at peaks of solar activity like recently, and it's BIGGER than EARTH. I could see it quite clearly from down here, 93 million miles away. As for the light off to the sides, I think that happened just because of the way the atmosphere scatter the Sun's light.

If you aren't quite sure what causes a total solar eclipse, don't worry, they're really cool, and not at all dangerous (so long as you DON'T look directly at the Sun)! Every once in a while, the moon in its orbit passes in front of the Sun. Since the Moon is small, but close, and the Sun is large, but far away, they appear to be very similar sizes. In the case of a total solar eclipse, the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, almost completely hiding the Sun from our eyes down here. It's safe to look at right then, but once the Sun starts to shine from behind the Moon as it moves on, it's time to put on your solar eclipse glasses! They'll protect your eyes from the Sun.

I hope you got to see this, because the next total solar eclipse in the U.S. will occur in 2044. Who knows what I will have accomplished, or what YOU will have accomplished by then?