If the moon's orbital plane is 0 degrees rather than 5 degrees, how often would solar and lunar eclipses occur

Answer 1

If the moon was EXACTLY on the earth's ecliptic plane, then yes eclipses would occur almost every day for 2 seasons of the year. They would only happen 2 seasons out of the year, because the earth is tilted in relation to the sun, and if you could see that imaginary tilt from the sun exactly edge on, only then would eclipses happen every day.

Answer 2

I think I may be stepping outside my area of expertise here just a little, but here's my thought on this. I'm assuming that by an orbital plane of 0 degrees, you mean that the moon orbits in the same plane as the sun.

In this case, a solar eclipse would occur approximately once a month and a lunar eclipse would occur approximately once a month.

More precisely, a lunar eclipse would occur about once every 29.5 days. This period of time is known as the synodic month (see my source). It is the time it takes the moon to complete one trip around the earth and get back into the same position relative to the sun (which is very important for eclipses). A solar eclipse would happen once every 29.5 days too.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon is in between the earth and sun. A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth is in between the sun and moon. Thus, these two events would not occur around the same time; they would be as spread out as possible, by about 15 days. If we were to experience a lunar eclipse today, we would have a solar eclipse in 15 days from now and the next lunar eclipse in about 30 days from now.

Hope this helps.

As an afterthought, I imagine the eclipses would also last longer than they do now. What does everyone else think?

Answer 3

This is essentialy a corollary to my answer to your other question about solar and lunar eclipses.

If the Moon's orbital plane and the Earth's orbital plane were the same (that's what you question is posing), then solar and lunar eclipses would each occur "once a month." However, while all who could see the moon on the relevant nights would agree that the Sun's shadow swept across it sometime during the night (a lunar eclipse), solar eclipses would only be seen by people each successive month living in different, narrow and curving strips of the Earth's surface. That's because, by an astonishing cosmic coincidence, the Sun and the Moon have almost exactly the same angular size, as viewed from the Earth! The shadow that the Sun casts from the Moon almost comes to a point at the Earth's surface! (It actually varies because the Moon's orbit also has about a 5% eccentricity, making it nearer or further away from Earth by that amount. So, the Moon's angular size changes from being slightly smaller to slightly larger than the Sun's.) Consequently, the maximum strip width to see a full solar eclipse is only about 30 miles, and the longest a full eclipse can last on any given occasion is about 8 minutes. So only some privileged people, lying along the preferred strips of the Earth's surface, would se any particular solar eclipse.

If you stubbornly declared that "NO," you weren't prepared to move, you'd damn well stay put until you SAW a solar eclipse, how long would you have to wait?:

About 300 years!

O.K., how often would eclipses occur in practice, if we 're not concerned about any particular person seeing them, but rather simply anyone somewhere on Earth seeing them? There'd be one of each kind each "month." But now we have to think a bit more carefully what we mean by the "month."

There are in fact two common astronomical "months."

1. There's the "sidereal month," the time taken for the Moon to go around the Earth realtive to the background stars. That's the shorter of the two, about 27 1/3 days.

2. There's the "synodic month" (awful term!), which is the time from when (say) the Sun and Moon line up with the Earth (in a given order) to the next time they do that. Because the Earth is going round the Sun while the Moon is going round the Earth, the Earth has moved on in its orbit a bit, making the Moon have to go a little bit more around Earth, itself, in order to "play catch-up" with the (moving) direction to the Sun. (Hard to describe, better explained with sketches in person.) Hopefully you get the general idea. THAT month, since it deals with the relative positions of Earth, Sun and Moon, is the type of month you need to use if you're talking about phases of the Moon. It would also be relevant for eclipses.

The length of that slightly longer "phase month" (a term I'd much rather were used) lasts about 29 1/2 days.

So, we're finally in a position to answer your question!

Start with a solar eclipse. The next would be a lunar eclipse, after about 14 3/4 days. The next solar eclipse would be ~ 14 3/4 days later than that, or 29 1/2 day after the initial solar eclipse. Then would be a lunar eclipse, 14 3/4 days later still, etc. etc.

In other words, there'sd be one of each kind of eclipse every "phase month" of 29 1/2 days, with them alternating their character from solar to lunar and back every 14 3/4 days.

I hope this has helped you.

Live long and prosper.

Answer 4

Given if the earth moon and sun were in a straight line,
they would happen twice a month , one lunar (earth between
moon and sun) at full moon, and one 2 weeks later at new
moon (solar eclipse). But they are not as the Sun and earth
have their own orbit tilt, and the moon and earth have their
own orbit tilt. So you are looking at three different planes
of orbit. Now there is a time when these orbits cross each
other and that point is called a node. So when the earth
moon and sun hit at a node, an eclipse happens.
The Earth shadow is expanse due to size and distance from
the sun. Consequently, the moon enters the earths shadow
(lunar eclipse) a lot more frequent than the moon shadow
hitting the earth (solar eclipse) but is usually partial
and not a total eclipse.
More info and diagrams available by email

Due to the difference between the earth and the sun, the monthly solar eclipses would be seen at different places around the globe.

Lunar eclipse would always be total.

Answer 5

Slammy doesn't quite have it right.

If the moon orbital plane was in the earth's ecliptic then everytime the moon went around the earth, ie, every 28 days or so, it would get between the sun and earth once and get in the earth's shadow once. There's be a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse every moon orbital period, 28 days.

Answer 6

If the Moons orbit was in the Plane of the Ecliptic, there would be an eclipse every 14.765 days, half the synodic period of the Moon

Answer 7

A lot more than we see now because it would be directly in line with the Earth and sun most of the time. Lunar eclipses would most likely be a nightly ritual, for say.

Answer 8

Patrick is nice, a photo voltaic eclipse each and each month. And each and each and every of the entire photo voltaic eclipses may be seen interior the tropics. Partial photo voltaic eclipses may be seen outdoors the tropics, yet no longer all a thanks to the poles. entire lunar eclipses may be seen from round the globe (nicely, 0.5 the international at a time) once a Month.

Answer 9

One lunar and one solar eclipse per lunar month.