Small Fish, Big Pond

I’m so jealous. I was hoping to be living in Japan by now and able to take a tour to Akusekijima to get the longest moment of totality, 6 and a half minutes.

Most people I’ve read or talked to who have seen total eclipses say it’s a very memorable, possibly life changing moment when the world goes into an eerie twilight where the moon swallows the sun. It’s no surprise than when these events were witnessed by more primitive civilizations they thought them to be the anger of the gods and the end of the world. I mean day becoming night is a Christian biblical sign of the end of the world!

I love those moments in life where the world around you seems so alien that you think that what you’re witnessing is something from another world. I definitely plan to travel to Kentuky for the next US total eclipse in 2017. It’s a paltry 2min 45sec by comparison but for 2:45 you’ll be able to pretend you’re in another world, or put yourself in the mindset of an Aztec Shaman or Hohokam Medicine Man wondering why the sun god that has provided the crops for your survival as suddenly forsaken you.

My personal favorite imaginary scenario is sci-fi, astronomy geek, scenario that due to extreme circumstances the sun has suddenly collapsed in on itself leaving a small black hole that the earth will fall into compressing us all to the size of a grain of sand. Or maybe it would be an odd supernova where during the contraction the sun goes dark right before it explodes and blasts the life off of Earth, ala Romulus in the new Start Trek Movie.

If you’re lucky enough to be in an area that can see a total eclipse don’t let the opportunity pass you by. For one thing they will eventually go away (in 600 million years the moon’s distance will be too great) and they have had major historic influences in our past, sometimes causing wars, other times stopping wars.

Read up, it’s really interesting stuff.