Ten minutes after totality ended, nearly everyone where I had watched, packed up and left. We're talking still 95% total.
You know why we all left? It's because there's nothing interesting going on when 5% of the sun's light gets through.
ML/NJ
Posted on 10/31/2017 12:52:19 PM PDT by Twotone
Researchers have pinpointed the date of what could be the oldest solar eclipse yet recorded. The event, which occurred on 30 October 1207 BC, is mentioned in the Bible, and could have consequences for the chronology of the ancient world.
Using a combination of the biblical text and an ancient Egyptian text, the researchers were then able to refine the dates of the Egyptian pharaohs, in particular the dates of the reign of Ramesses the Great. The results are published in the Royal Astronomical Society journal Astronomy & Geophysics.
The biblical text in question comes from the Old Testament book of Joshua and has puzzled biblical scholars for centuries. It records that after Joshua led the people of Israel into Canaan -- a region of the ancient Near East that covered modern-day Israel and Palestine -- he prayed: "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon. And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies."
"If these words are describing a real observation, then a major astronomical event was taking place -- the question for us to figure out is what the text actually means," said paper co-author Professor Sir Colin Humphreys from the University of Cambridge's Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, who is also interested in relating scientific knowledge to the Bible.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
PinGGG!..................
But what was the temperature of the earth that day??
The Pharaohs started global warming by building the Pyramids to suck all of the sun`s heat into them.
And knowledge Shall increase....
This is such a crock!
It doesn't look like a ring of fire. It looks like something to bright too look at.
I don't know about this specific annular eclipse but my guess is that most would go unnoticed were it not for modern predictions. Yes, the light from the sun is diminished, but the human eye adjusts just like when clouds cover the sun. People just don't go around checking out the sun from time to time.
ML/NJ
I don’t think the event recorded in the bible has anything to do with an eclipse.
If this is based on the presumption that Ramesses the Great was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, that is very much in debate among both Egyptologists and Exodus scholars.
You obviously have NOT witnessed a solar eclipse.
It is a shame no one wrote any of this stuff down.
I witnessed the last one and had I not heard it on the TV I would not have noticed a thing. Chickens didn't go to roost or anything.
When it suddenly gets twilight dark in the middle of the day without a cloud in the sky people damn sure do look up.
Ten minutes after totality ended, nearly everyone where I had watched, packed up and left. We're talking still 95% total.
You know why we all left? It's because there's nothing interesting going on when 5% of the sun's light gets through.
ML/NJ
It doesn't get "twilight dark" until 98% of the sun is obscured. If that's the maximum totality you experience, you experience it for ten seconds and then it's daylight again. Throughout the sun is too bright to look at.
By now I've probably experienced 10 90%+ partial eclipses plus three total eclipses. The first total eclipse I traveled to was obscured by clouds that rolled in five minutes before totality. It was a big nothing. During the partial eclipses, people look for strange shadows under trees. Other animals don't care. Big whoop.
ML/NJ
Just because you’ve chosen to take the stance of a jaded hipster doesn’t change the fact that a total eclipse experienced by a society who doesn’t know what’s going on WILL come as a shock and WILL make people look up. And the duration is generally longer than 5 minutes. And then of course if they look at it too long they’ll damage their eye sight. Very much a ring of fire to primitive people that don’t know what’s going on.
I guess you have trouble reading and want to continue to embarrass yourself here. This wasn't a total eclipse that this article is about. Read it.
Total eclipses that last longer than five minutes are exceedingly rare. None that I've experienced even lasted three minutes. There was one eclipse cycle that produced seven minute eclipses in 1973 (Africa) and 1991 (Mexico) but this cycle has ended. The next eclipse visible in the USA will be the longest one I have a chance to see. It will be four and half minutes in Mexico, but by the time it gets to NY it will be down to three and a half minutes.
I am the one with knowledge and experience here. Grow up.
ML/NJ
Eclipses ARE noticeable, especially to people who didn’t have cellphones to stick their noses in and are actually experiencing the world around them.
You are the jaded one pretending to have knowledge but really just pointless insulting people and just plain refusing to understand the difference between our world when we know eclipses are coming decades out and their world when the sun would suddenly and inexplicably be darker than it should be. Grow up yourself, stop trying to impress people, because your very need to impress makes you unimpressive.
The ancients didn’t have cable tv, so they spent a good amount of time watching the sky instead. Their knowledge of the positions of the constellations, of the sun and the moon cycles, and of the seasons was thorough and precise.
Not that thorough and precise. Remember not all of them figured out what was rotating around what. And if you don’t have the orbital mechanics down then eclipses can be surprising. But they were definitely paying attention and would have noticed eclipses.
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