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Why Future Earthlings Won’t See Total Solar Eclipses

August 14, 2017
Nell Greenfieldboyce

On Nov. 13, 2012, a narrow corridor in the southern hemisphere experienced a total solar eclipse. The corridor lay mostly over the ocean but also cut across the northern tip of Australia where both professional and amateur astronomers gathered to watch.

The Earth won’t enjoy total solar eclipses forever because the moon is moving farther away, so it looks smaller and smaller over time.

(Image credit: Romeo Durscher/NASA Goddard Space Center/Flickr)