The umbra takes the shape of a dark, slender cone. There are actually two types of shadows: the umbra is that part of the shadow where all sunlight is blocked out. On the average a total eclipse occurs somewhere on Earth about every 18 months. But the moon also happens to be about 400 times closer to Earth than the sun (the ratio varies as both orbits are elliptical), and as a result, when the orbital planes intersect and the distances align favorably, the new moon can appear to completely blot out the disk of the sun. The sun's 864,000-mile diameter is fully 400 times greater than that of our puny moon, which measures just about 2,160 miles. Total solar eclipses are a happy accident of nature. (Image credit: Petr Horálek/ESO) Total solar eclipses The total solar eclipse of July 2, 2019, as seen from the La Silla Observatory in Chile.
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