Solar eclipse and Rosh Chodesh Nissan

amother

Tue, Apr 09 2024, 5:03 pm

The 8th of April - the date of the solar eclipse was the beginning of the Hebrew month Nissan.
There was a new moon.
How was that the moon covering the sun?
The moon is a tiny crescent. How is it that it covered the sun?
Where was the moon before and after it covered the sun?
So confused..
Anyone know the answers? Could be quite simple, just thinking aloud. And for some reason my slow brain is not getting it.

Elfrida

Tue, Apr 09 2024, 5:26 pm

A solar eclipse is always on Rosh Chodesh. (A lunar eclipse is always at the full moon.)

The moon is a full circle, throughout the month. It has no light of its own, and reflects the sun's light. The sun is a f9xed point in space, which we cam define as the centre of a circle. The earth rotates around the sun. Then moon rotates around the earth, while following it as it rotates around the sun.

At night, we are on the part of the planet that is turned away from the sun. The earth is blocking some part of the sun's rays from reaching the moon. The moons position relative to the earth changes overs the course of the month, which allows a greater or lesser part of it to be exposed to the sun's rays, and for us to see that reflected. (You could say the man in the moon experiences an earth eclipse every month, on Rosh Chodesh!)

During the solar eclipse, the moon, which is constantly rotating the earth, got between the earth and the sun. When the eclipse was over, it carried on, on the same path, but the relative positions of the sun and the earth had changed.

amother

Hosta

Tue, Apr 09 2024, 5:27 pm

The sliver of the moon just what we can see from earth at the beginning of the month The moon is always round. In this case the sun was behind the moon and a sliver of the sun appeared as the moon moved over it.