• Health
  • Science
  • U.S.
  • Technology
  • Business
  • World
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Sports

Building a Better World

News and information

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Our Team

This totally bizarre mystery about the solar eclipse will amaze you

August 12, 2017 By Dan Taylor

This totally bizarre mystery about the solar eclipse will amaze you

As the moon casts a shadow over the United States, one bizarre phenomenon has scientists completely stumped.

The solar eclipse is just a few days away, and many Americans are traveling to the “band of totality” stretching across the United States in time for the Aug. 21 phenomenon. If you’re there, you may want to look out for one of the weirdest mysteries involving solar eclipses.

They’re called “shadow bands,” and they’re a strange phenomenon that sometimes shows up during solar eclipses. It’s visible only when the sun has just a rare of light peeking past the moon. And scientists aren’t really sure how it happens.

They look like strange gray ripples that seem to flit over the ground just minutes from a totality. As totality draws closer, they get more and more visible, and the pattern reverses when totality end.

Scientists have proposed a number of theories. One is that the bands are a diffraction pattern created by waves of light passing through a thin part of a solid surface. Another scientist in 1924 proposed that they were overlapping pinhole images caused by gaps in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. A more probable explanation is that the sun’s rays are being distorted by Earth’s atmosphere, so essentially a meteoroligcal effect.

Sharing

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Filed Under: Front Page, Science

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow Us

Facebookrss

Search:

Recent Posts

  • NASA’s InSight spacecraft makes important course correction May 26, 2018
  • Scientists outraged at latest Trump decision May 15, 2018
  • Huge uproar erupts over major incident at Utah park May 13, 2018
  • Incredible moon discovery stuns scientists May 12, 2018
  • Authorities shocked by discovery about common painkiller May 6, 2018
  • Outrageous crocodile experiment stuns scientists May 5, 2018
  • Great Barrier Reef is too quiet, scientists say May 1, 2018
  • Massive Hiroshima bomb discovery shocks scientists May 1, 2018
  • Earth will be slammed by massive asteroid April 29, 2018
  • Teens are doing something incredibly alarming in schools April 29, 2018
  • Huge discovery in Tasmania stuns scientists April 28, 2018
  • Shocking discovery in New Jersey stuns authorities April 22, 2018
  • Huge volcanic explosion could wipe out the United States April 21, 2018
  • Huge controversy erupts over world’s hottest pepper April 15, 2018
  • SpaceX is about to do something astonishing April 15, 2018

Copyright © 2022 Jones Kilmartin Group, LLC · Metro Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress