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For people in the United States, an extraordinary series of lunar eclipses is about to begin.

a lunar eclipse tetrad—a series of 4 consecutive total eclipses occurring at approximately six month intervals

The total eclipse of April 15, 2014, will be followed by another on Oct. 8, 2014, and another on April 4, 2015, and another on Sept. 28 2015.

On April 29th, an annular solar eclipse occurs over a small D-shaped 500 kilometre wide region of Antarctica

2014 has the minimum number of eclipses possible in one year, with four: two partial solars and two total lunars

This month’s solar eclipse is also a rarity in that it’s a non-central eclipse with one limit

Earliest Record Solar Eclipse

In 709 BC, the earliest record of a confirmed total solar eclipse was written in China. From: Ch'un-ch'iu, book I: "Duke Huan, 3rd year, 7th month, day jen-ch'en, the first day (of the month). The Sun was eclipsed and it was total." This is the earliest direct allusion to a complete obscuration of the Sun in any civilisation. The recorded date, when reduced to the Julian calendar, agrees exactly with that of a computed solar eclipse. Reference to the same eclipse appears in the Han-shu ('History of the Former Han Dynasty') (Chinese, 1st century AD): "...the eclipse threaded centrally through the Sun; above and below it was yellow." Earlier Chinese writings that refer to an eclipse do so without noting totality.

stunning footage of Tuesday's (Feb. 21)

partial eclipse that was visible only from space

@NASA_SDO

Oldest eclipse record

In 1223 BC, the oldest recorded eclipse occurred, according to one plausible interpretation of a date inscribed on a clay tablet retrieved from the ancient city of Ugarit, Syria (as it is now). This date is favoured by recent authors on the subject, although alternatively 3 May 1375 BC has also been proposed as plausible. Certainly by the 8th century BC, the Babylonians were keeping a systematic record of solar eclipses, and possibly by this time they may have been able to apply numerological rules to make fairly accurate predictions of the occurrence of solar eclipses.

Phobos does not completely cover the sun as seen from the Red Planet's surface, so the Aug. 17 event was an annular or "ring of fire" eclipse

Phobos is just 14 miles (22 kilometers) wide on average

Phobos appears

According to Einstein, space-time is a structure in itself

also predicted that exceptionally massive, rapidly rotating objects — such as a white dwarf binary pair — would create outwardly-expanding ripples in space-time that would ultimately “steal” kinetic energy from the objects themselves. These gravitational waves would be very subtle, yet in theory, observable.

Originally observed in 2011 eclipsing each other

Einstein's relativity theory proved

In 1919, a solar eclipse permitted observation of the bending of starlight passing through the sun's gravitational field, as predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Separate expeditions of the Royal Astronomical Society travelled to Brazil and off the west coast of Africa. Both made measurements of the position of stars visible close to the sun during a solar eclipse. These observations showed that, indeed, the light of stars was bent as it passed through the gravitational field of the sun. This was a key prediction of Albert Einstein's theory that gravity affected energy as in addition to the familiar effect on matter. The verification of predictions of Einstein's theory, proved during the solar eclipse was a dramatic landmark scientific event.

Orbiting the Earth at a distance of 36,000 kilometers in geosynchronous orbit, the SDO usually has a spectacular, uninterrupted view of our nearest star

The sharp edge of the lunar limb helps researchers measure the in-orbit characteristics of the telescope

how light diffracts around the telescope's optics and filter support grids

Earth's moon

A spectacular new video from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the Red Planet's two tiny moons eclipsing each other

Curiosity snapped 41 images of the Mars moons in the night sky on Aug. 1, with rover scientists then stitching them together to make the final 30-second video

Researchers are now posting all exoplanet sightings by the Kepler observatory into a single, comprehensive website called the "NASA Exoplanet Archive."

Instead of going through the long planet confirmation process before making data publicly available

So the day we know about the list, the archive knows about the list. And then everybody, including us, can work on that list. But that list is dynamic so if we, or a community person, makes an observation and says, 'Hey, I looked at this planet candidate but it's really an eclipsing binary,' then that entry in the archive will be changed."

On June 5 (June 6 in Australia and Asia), it will pass between the Earth and Sun… an event which only happens about twice and century and won’t happen again until the year 2117!

now is the time to begin your preparations to view the transit of Venus.

Because the transit of Venus is such a rare event, many retailers are carrying special eclipse/transit viewing glasses

Transits of Venus across the disk of the Sun are among the rarest of planetary alignments

only six such events have occurred since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882

event begins with contact I which is the instant when the planet's disk is externally tangent with the Sun. The entire disk of the Venus is first seen at contact II when the planet is internally tangent with the Sun. During the next several hours, Venus gradually traverses the solar disk at a relative angular rate of approximately 4 arc-min/hr. At contact III, the planet reaches the opposite limb and is once again internally tangent with the Sun. The transit ends at contact IV when the planet's limb is externally tangent to the Sun