It is the middle of the day. The sun shines bright in the sky. Suddenly, the sky seems to be growing dark! The sun seems to be disappearing! Soon the sun is nearly as dark as night and there is only a pale, fuzzy ring around it! What has happened?
The moon, which moves around the planet Earth, has passed between Earth and the sun. The sun is much bigger than the moon, but it is so far away from us that the moon seems to cover it up. When the moon is between the sun and Earth, the moon throws a shadow on Earth. The part of Earth covered by the shadow gets dark. This is a total eclipse of the sun, or a total solar eclipse.
Sometimes during an eclipse the moon covers only part of the sun. This is called a partial eclipse.
The sun’s rays can hurt your eyes, so never look directly at the sun – even during an eclipse!
Picture Credit : Google