Aim: What causes solar and lunar eclipses? Tides & Eclipses Aim: What causes solar and lunar eclipses?

I. Tides The rising and falling of a large body of water due to the moon’s and sun’s gravitational pull. Although the moon is much smaller than the sun, it is much closer to the Earth. Therefore, the moon has a greater gravitational effect on Earth than the sun does.

II. Type of Tides Spring Tides- Occur at the full and new moon phases. Produces the largest tidal range (highest high tide and lowest low tide)

B. Neap Tide- when the sun and the moon are at right angles to the Earth, we receive the lowest range of tides.

Eclipse For ancient man, eclipses, when “day turned into night”, was certainly among the most terrifying of all natural phenomena. Click to learn about Eclipses

III. Solar Eclipse The moon passes directly between Earth and the Sun, and casts a shadow blocking out sunlight. They can only occur at the time of the new moon.

A. Parts of the Moon’s Shadow Umbra- total eclipse resulting in total darkness Penumbra- partial darkness caused by an eclipse

IV. Lunar Eclipse The moon moves through the Earth’s shadow and people will view an eclipse of the moon. They can only occur during a full moon.

V. Why don’t eclipses occur more often? The Earth, Sun and Moon have to be in perfect alignment and this doesn’t occur very often. The next total solar eclipse in New York will be August 21, 2017