I know it takes like 8 minutes for sunlight to reach earth, so does that mean that we experience the eclipse 8 minutes after it happens? I understand that the moon isn’t nearly as far so it’s probably more of just the moon going in front of it, but it confuses me because we still see the ray of sunlight around the moon at totality, so is that light “8 minutes old”?
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This question is made complicated by the concept of when does an eclipse “happen” being not well defined. Because it’s an event that takes place when the Moon blocks the Sun from view on Earth, and the Sun and the Moon and the Earth aren’t “in the same time”, which of those times is it really “happening” in?
Did the eclipse “happen” when the observer on Earth saw the sunlight get blocked?
Did the eclipse “happen” when the Sun’s rays that would otherwise hit Earth hit the Moon instead?
Did the eclipse “happen” when the Sun’s rays that will get blocked by the Moon first got emitted from the Sun?
These are 3 different times. And the eclipse is defined as the entire story of events that these 3 things form. It’s .. messy.
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