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On Wed, 20 Dec 2000, Irene wrote:
> When was the last time a solar eclipse happened on December 25th that
> could be viewed in North America. I have several employees at the
> hospital where I work requesting this information. Please, have a nice
> holiday season. Thanks in advance, Irene
Hello Irene,
I'm sorry for the delay in responding, but your question reached us during
the holiday break. Anyway, I found the following paragraph on a NASA
website about solar eclipses:
"The last solar eclipse on December 25 was in 1954. It was an annular
eclipse seen in the southern hemisphere over Africa. The next solar
eclipse on December 25th occurs in 2307. It will be a partial eclipse
visible off the western coast of Africa. There are two more December 25
eclipses in the twenty-fourth century: 2326 and 2383. The 2383 event will
be seen from the northern hemisphere. The last total eclipse of the Sun on
December 25 was in the year 1666 over South America. The next total
eclipse of the Sun on Dec. 25 will be in 2755 in Europe. (Special thanks
to Jack Dunn - Mueller Planetarium - Un. of Nebr. State Museum for
researching the topic of December 25 eclipses using the NASA 5,000 Solar
Eclipse Catalog.)"
As for a Christmas eclipse visible from North America, it is hard for me
to be certain, since the tables only list the central part of the eclipse,
and the outer edges can extend for a few thousand miles. But I am fairly
certain that the eclipse of Dec. 25, 1628 would have been visible from the
southeastern US. There are numerous solar eclipses on Christmas Day over
the years visible from the southern hemisphere, and many fewer from the
northern hemisphere. This is due to the fact that the
northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, and so covers only a
small part of the sunlit side of the Earth.
Thanks for writing!
Sincerely,
Kurtis Williams
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