How fast will October's annular solar eclipse travel?

[Admin]

The moon's shadow will travel as fast as 7,000 mph on Oct. 14 and as slow as 1,700 mph. We explore what affects the speed of a solar eclipse.

How fast will October's annular solar eclipse travel? : Read more

 

[billslugg]

I was in Piedmont Park, Atlanta for the May 30, 1984 annular eclipse. Great weather, good crowd. Best part was the tiny circles on the ground under every tree.

 

[Dugggg]

I don't think that speed formula works properly near the two ends of the eclipse path. A reasonable estimate simply divides the path width by the duration of totality, and I just don't see how you could possibly get 500,000 mph here.

 

[billslugg]

The Moon's shadow first touches the Earth tangentially. At that moment, the speed is infinite. It slows down until midpoint then speeds up becoming infinite again when the shadow leaves Earth.