Marketing leaders are always looking for ways to motivate team members and taking a little time out to view the eclipse on August 21st is a great way to do so. While the eclipse will only last a short time, businesses across the country are planning parties and celebrations as a way to treat their employees. Here we’ve compiled 10 eclipse fun facts for you to share with your team.
1. The total solar eclipse, when the Moon completely obscures the Sun and leaves only the faint solar corona, is known as a Totality.
2. A total solar eclipse is not noticeable until the Sun is covered 90% by the Moon. When the Moon covers the Sun by 99% the sky resembles twilight.
3. The beautiful symmetry of a total solar eclipse happens because—by pure chance—the sun is 400 times larger than the moon but is also 400 times farther from Earth, making the two bodies appear the exact same size in the sky.
4. Jupiter can have a triple eclipse, in which three moons cast shadows on the planet simultaneously. The event is easily visible through a backyard telescope.
5. Total solar eclipses have not always been visible from Earth. In the past, the Moon was too close to Earth and during eclipses it completely blotted out the Sun’s disk. Over time, the lunar orbit has changed at the rate of just over 2 cm per year and in the current epoch, the alignment is nearly perfect at times. However, the Moon’s orbit will continue to widen, and in perhaps 600 million years, total solar eclipses will no longer occur. Instead, future observers will see partial and annular eclipses only.
6. The speed of the Moon as it moves across the Sun is approximately 2,250 km (1,398 miles) per hour.
7. Solar eclipses progressively take place. The moon moves from west to east, and the sun gradually becomes hidden by the moon's shadow. Since the moon is constantly moving, the actual total solar eclipse only lasts for about 2-3 minutes on average, and never lasts more than 7 minutes and 31 seconds due to the way that orbits work.
8. In 1919, there was a very famous solar eclipse that helped prove Einstein's theory of relativity, which stated that light can bend due to gravitational fields; during the eclipse, astronomers watched a background star appear to shift slightly, thus bending through the sun's gravitational field.
9. According to NASA, the only time it's safe to look directly at the sun during a total solar eclipse is during totality, or complete darkness. Once those couple minutes are over, eye protection must be worn to prevent irreversible damage.
10. Total solar eclipses cannot be seen from the North or South Pole – you could only see partial solar eclipses from these locations.
Founded in 1990, Winn Technology Group is a leading provider of global, multi-channel marketing solutions for the technology industry. For both direct and channel sales, Winn supports demand creation, account-based marketing, channel management, digital marketing, social media, teleprospecting, lead nurturing, event marketing, database services, and inbound response management.
Sources: http://www.8planets.co.uk/, http://discovermagazine.com/, https://theplanets.org, http://space-facts.com/, http://study.com/
