Earth, Sun and Moon Notes

LUNAR ECLIPSE

•         When the Earth comes between the sun and the moon, it blocks a lot of the sunlight from reaching the moon and creates a shadow.

•         This is called an eclipse of the moon or lunar eclipse.

Figure 22: Lunar eclipse

•         The Earth's shadow has two parts:-

•         Lunar eclipse may be partial or total.

SOLAR ECLIPSE

•         When the moon comes between the Earth and the Sun, it blocks the sunlight to an extent.

•         The sun looks as: it has a disc in front of it that creates a shadow.

•         This is a solar eclipse as the sun is eclipsed or hidden partially from the view.

Figure 23: Solar eclipse

•         The moon's shadow also has two parts—the umbra and the penumbra.

•         When the moon's penumbral shadow reaches the Earth, we can see a partial eclipse from that region of the Earth.

INDIA’S MISSION TO THE MOON

Figure 24: Chandrayaan 1- First spacecraft sent to the moon

•         The Chandrayaan-1 mission is India's first spacecraft to the moon.

•         It was announced in 2003.

•         The launch date of the moon probe was set for late 2008.

•         The mission was launched by India's national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on 22 October 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.