Get Ready for a Total Solar Eclipse!

Shown are colour diagrams of the positions of the Sun, Earth and Moon during a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse. The top illustration is titled “Lunar Eclipse.” It shows the Sun as a yellow circle on the left, Earth as a blue circle on the right, and the Moon as a grey circle orbiting on a blue ring around it. The sun’s light is shown as a light blue cone extending from the sun to the right. Its apex is at the Moon’s circle of orbit. From here, another apex widens into another cone and the base connects with Earth. Here, the western hemisphere is light, and the eastern is dark. A darker blue area above and below this extends from the width of the Sun, and narrows down to the width of the Earth. The Moon is on the opposite side of Earth from the sun. It is dark grey, as if in shadow. The bottom illustration is titled “Solar Eclipse.” Here, the Moon is between the Sun and Earth. It is light grey. The apexes of the light blue cones of sunlight meet in between the sun and moon, casting a circular shadow on Earth. The darkest part of the shadow is a small dot in the centre. This is the apex of the Moon’s umbra.

Shown is a colour animation of the Moon’s orbit around a flat disc, tilted at an angle to Earth. The animation shows Earth in the months before the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse. It begins with a view from above. Earth is rotating in the centre of a disc representing its plan of orbit. The Moon traces a white circle around this. A thin dark line that represents the Moon's shadow appears to cross the Earth often. Then the animation shifts to a side view. This reveals the five-degree tilt of the Moon's orbit. The Moon’s shadow only hits the Earth at the end of the animation, when its orbit crosses the edge of the blue disc. The animation shifts back to a view from above and slows down. This shows the circle of the Moon’s shadow crossing the day side of Earth.

Shown is a colour map of the world overlaid with dozens of curved blue and red stripes and one pink line. Each stripe is labelled with a year, month, and day. A legend along the bottom indicates that the blue stripes represent total solar eclipses, the red annular solar eclipses, and the pink a hybrid solar eclipse. The blue stripe labelled “2024 April 8” is thin. It curves from the South Pacific ocean, up across Mexico, through the eastern United States and into southern Ontario, Quebec and through the Atlantic provinces. It ends in the north Atlantic ocean, about ¾ of the way between the island of Newfoundland and the coast of France.

Shown is a colour map of North America overlaid with translucent grey stripes and several illustrations of the Sun in eclipse. The title, “Total Solar Eclipse of April 8, 2024,” is across the top of the map. Below, the stripes are thick and slightly curved, diagonally from the bottom left to the top right. The centre one of these is thinner, outlined in bright green with a red line down the middle. This is labelled “Path of Total Eclipse” in block letters. This path is the darkest grey, as if that part of the land is in deep shadow. The rest of the stripes get brighter and brighter as they move outward from here. There are three illustrations of the Sun over cities along this path. They are all black discs with a little light around the edges. The first is labelled “Dallas,” the second is labelled “Montréal,” and the third is labelled “St. John’s.” Above and below the path of total eclipse, the next brightest stripes are labelled “Magnitude 0.8.” Outside of these, the next pair of stripes is labelled “Magnitude 0.6.” In the northern one of these is an illustration of the Sun, about half-covered with a black disc, so that it has a crescent shape. This is labelled “Winnipeg.” The second brightest pair of stripes is labelled “Magnitude 0.2.” Here, the Sun has a small black bite taken out of it. This is labelled “Vancouver.” The outside edges of the next pair of stripes, near the top left and bottom right corners of the map, are labelled “Northern Limit of Partial Eclipse” and “Southern Limit of Partial Eclipse.”