Eclipse

Pluto, with its large moon Charon, is also the site of many eclipses. Italics denote a tie game.
* - Denotes BCS Championship Games. It is common to see the larger moons casting circular shadows upon Jupiter's cloudtops. In 1998, the Fiesta Bowl featured the first BCS National Championship Game, which Tennessee won over Florida State, 23 to 16. The most striking involve Jupiter, which has four large moons, and which has a low axial tilt, making eclipses more frequent. Finally, with the addition of the Big Ten and Pac 10 conferences to the rechristened Bowl Championship Series, the Fiesta Bowl became a permanent fixture in the four year BCS National Championship Game rotation. The gas giants, which have many moons, frequently display eclipses. When this series incorporated a title game with a preset rotating site beginning in 1996, the Fiesta Bowl was the first to host the game, featuring undefeated #1 Nebraska playing undefeated#2 Florida for the National Championship.

See Transit of Phobos from Mars and Shadow of Phobos on Mars. In 1992, the Fiesta Bowl was invited to participate in the Bowl Coalition, a predecessor to the Bowl Championship Series, assuring the game would feature major conference champions or prestigious runners up, and the possibility of hosting further national title games. Martian eclipses have been photographed from both the surface of Mars and from orbit. For the 1991 game, several major universities declined invitations due to the State of Arizona's decision at that time not to adopt the Martin Luther King Holiday. On Mars, only partial eclipses are possible, because neither of its moons is large enough to cover the Sun's disc. By this time, the Fiesta Bowl's ability to stage games with national championship implications propelled it to major-bowl status in the minds of college football fans, replacing the Cotton Bowl as a member of the postseason's "top four.". Eclipses are impossible on Mercury and Venus, which have no moons. Two years later, #1 Notre Dame played undefeated#3 West Virginia for the National Championship at the Fiesta Bowl.

(see also: omen). The 1987 game, won by Penn State 14-10, was the most watched college football game, in terms of television viewership, until the 2006 Rose Bowl Game. Traditionally, eclipses were said to have a malefic influence, that supposedly being a more negative and ominous influence rather than a positive one. Both universities were independents at that time, all of the so-called major bowls had tie-ins with conferences, and of the other bowls only the Fiesta Bowl had the resources to pull off a matchup of this magnitude. In the field of astrology an eclipse is said to activate the exact degree of the ecliptic that the eclipse falls upon, in one of the 12 astrological signs. A major breakthrough occurred in 1987 when the top two teams in the country, Miami and Penn State, agreed to play for the National Championship in the Fiesta Bowl. In other cultures an eclipse could be both a surprising and a terrifying event. The game continued to attract high quality matchups, however, and beginning with the 1981 game shifted to New Year's Day with the other major bowl games.

In this explanation we see a recognition of the celestial realities and a cheerful outlook regarding the event. In 1978, Arizona and Arizona State each joined the Pac 10 Conference, and the Fiesta Bowl's tie-in with the Western Athletic Conference ended. Similarly in China, at the Imperial observatory, Beijing is a carved stone brought from a distant province with the following explanation (here rewritten):. In 1977, the game was again able to attract a top five opponent in Penn State. No wonder many indians believe that eclipses are inauspicious and can cause damage or bad luck to human beings, apart from the well known damage that can be caused to the retina of the eye when a solar eclipse is viewed directly. By 1975, the game was able to attract Big Eight co-champion Nebraska to play undefeated Arizona State in a matchup of top five teams. For example, in Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahuand Ketu, are believed to be the cause of eclipses. The 1971 inaugural game featured another top ten Arizona State squad against top twenty opponent Florida State.

These would typically involve conflicts between mythic forces. The Fiesta Bowl therefore initially provided an automatic bowl tie-in for the Western Athletic Conference champion. Before modern astronomy arose there were long-standing explanations for eclipses in many cultures. In 1968 and 1969, respectively, champions Wyoming and Arizona State failed to obtain any invitation, while in 1970, undefeated Arizona State was bypassed by the major bowls and had to settle for a less prestigious Peach Bowl appearance. There are three types of lunar eclipses: penumbral, when the Moon crosses only the Earth's penumbra; partial, when the Moon crosses partially into the Earth's umbra; and total, when the Moon crosses entirely within the Earth's umbra. The creation of Fiesta Bowl grew out of the frustration of the Western Athletic Conference in trying to obtain suitable bowl invitiations for its champions. These were used in occult ceremonies. .

These eclipses can be divided into different types:. In January 2007, the game will be played at Cardinals Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, along with the new stand-alone BCS National Championship Game. The most dramatic eclipses visible from Earth are:. In 1999 the Fiesta Bowl became part of the Bowl Championship Series, and every four years (most recently in 2003) is the designee for the national championship game. They repeat according to eclipse cycles. The Fiesta Bowl, now sponsored by Tostitos tortilla chips (a Frito-Lay product), is a United States college football game played annually since 1971 in Tempe, Arizona, hosted by Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium. There can be from four to seven eclipses in a calendar year.

The Sun passes either node once a year, and eclipses occur in a period of about two draconic months around these times. Because the plane of the orbit of the Moon is tilted with respect to the plane of the orbit of the Earth (the ecliptic), eclipses occur only when the three bodies are near the intersection (the node) of these planes. An eclipse involving the Sun, Earth and Moon can only occur when they are in a line. .

An eclipse is a type of syzygy, as are transits and occultations. A solar eclipse is actually a misnomer; the phenomenon is actually an occultation. However, it can also refer to such events beyond the Earth-Moon system: for example, a planet moving into the shadow cast by one of its moons, a moon passing into the shadow cast by its parent planet, or a moon passing into the shadow of another moon. The term is most often used to describe either a solar eclipse, when the Moon's shadow crosses Earth's surface, or a lunar eclipse, when the Moon moves into the shadow of Earth.

An eclipse (Greek verb: ecleipo, "to cease existing" or calypse, "to cover" ) is an astronomical event that occurs when one celestial object moves into the shadow of another. Lastly, fourth contact (also called second exterior contact) is the instant when the Moon clears the Earth's umbra completely. This is the end of totality. Third contact (also called second interior contact) is the instant when the Moon starts to come out of the Earth's umbra.

The maximum of the eclipse occurs when the angular distance between the centre of the Moon's disc and the centre of the shadow cone is at its smallest value. This is the beginning of totality. Second contact (also called first interior contact) is the instant when the Moon enters completely into the Earth's umbra. First contact (also called first exterior contact) is the instant when the Moon starts to enter into the Earth's umbra.

Lastly, fourth contact (also called second exterior contact) is the instant when the Moon's disc clears the Sun's. Third contact (also called second interior contact) is the instant when the Moon's disc starts to come out of the Sun's (for an annular eclipse) or the instant when the Sun's disc reappears from behind the Moon's (for a total eclipse). Second contact (also called first interior contact) is the instant when the Moon's disc is entirely surrounded by the Sun's (for an annular eclipse) or the instant when the Sun's disc disappears completely behind the Moon's (for a total eclipse). First contact (also called first exterior contact) is the instant when the Moon's disc starts to cover the Sun's.

The general eclipse ends when the Moon's penumbra finishes its sweep across the Earth's disc. The total or annular eclipse ends when the Moon's shadow finishes its sweep across the Earth's disc. The centrality ends when the axis of the Moon's shadow finishes its sweep across the Earth's disc. The eclipse's maximum occurs when the terrestrial surface within the umbra reaches its largest area.

The centrality begins when the axis of the Moon's shadow cone starts to sweep across the Earth's disc. The total or annular eclipse begins when the Moon's umbra starts to sweep across the Earth's disc. The general eclipse begins when the Moon's penumbra cone starts to sweep across the Earth's disc. Hybrid solar eclipses, which consists of three phases: the eclipse starts as an annular one, then turns into a total and by the end it returns to the annular phase.

Annular eclipses are ideal times for observing solar prominences. It is pure coincidence that the Moon and Sun have nearly equal apparent sizes, making annular eclipses possible. For solar eclipses, the viewer is in the antumbra part of the Moon's shadow. Annular eclipse, which are a total eclipse of luminary where a thin ring of light is visible around the intervening object.

For solar eclipses, the viewer is in the penumbra part of the Moon's shadow. Partial eclipses, in which only part of the luminary is covered (solar eclipses), or when only part of a body is eclipsed by the shadow (lunar eclipses). For total solar eclipses, the viewer is in the umbra part of the Moon's shadow. Total eclipses, in which the light source is totally blocked off by the eclipsing body.

This can only happen at new moon. The Moon casts a shadow that touches the surface of the Earth. Solar eclipses - the Moon occults the Sun, from the Earth's point of view. This can only happen at full moon.

The Moon moves through the shadow cast by the Earth. Lunar eclipses - the Earth obscures the Sun, from the Moon's point of view.