SLOOH SpaceCamera - Live Event. Solar Eclipse on May 20: How to Safely Watch | Skywatching. WATCH LIVE: See webcast coverage of the May 20 solar eclipse here: Watch Today's 'Ring of Fire' Solar Eclipse Here: Webcast Info UPDATE: For the latest tips and advice on seeing the May 20 solar eclipse, see: Annular Solar Eclipse of May 20: Complete Coverage Just two weeks after the huge "supermoon" wowed skywatchers around the world, the heavens will offer up another observing treat — a solar eclipse on May 20 that should be visible from much of western North America. The May 20 event is what's known as an annular solar eclipse, in which the moon blocks out most of the sun but leaves a ring of light visible around its circumference.
It should be quite a spectacular sight for favorably placed — and appropriately careful —skywatchers throughout Asia, the Pacific region and parts of North America. Annular solar eclipses: The basics As the moon revolves aroundEarth, it passes between our planet and the sun once every 29.5 days. The May 20 annular eclipse: How to watch Safety first Who knows? The Last 100 years: 1969 and the Final Frontier : Starts With A Bang. There’s no doubt that physics and astronomy was booming in the 1960s. The model that protons and neutrons were made of quarks was proposed and validated, the most powerful nuclear device of all time was detonated, and the Cosmic Microwave Background was discovered, validating the Big Bang. (Not to mention devastating advances in biology, too.) But something far more awesome than that happened in 1969.
It not only trumps splitting the proton and confirming the Big Bang, it is — for me — the finest accomplishment in all of human history. These three men are symbols of the entire space program, and of just how awesome the rest of the Universe is, outside of our home world. There were a whole bunch of “firsts” that happened with this mission, but they can be summarized in one simple sentence: We became the first living species to willfully transport ourselves off of our home world and onto another, and to live there, for however brief a time.
Or, as Neil Armstrong put it: