The ancient Babylonians knew enough about the Moon\u2019s path and the saros cycle (the 18-year and 11-day cycle of eclipse recurrence) to be able to predict lunar eclipses<\/a> well in advance.<\/p>\n But solar eclipses<\/a> are visible from a far smaller area than lunar eclipses, and the track of any totality produced is very narrow.<\/p>\n Ancient civilisations did not have a precise enough knowledge of the Moon\u2019s path to accurately predict solar eclipses, nor did they have the mathematical tools with which to predict them.<\/p>\n It is only in the last 300 years that astronomers have been able to predict solar eclipses accurately.<\/p>\n In the early 18th century, Edmond Halley was responsible for a big leap forward when he greatly improved upon the mathematical tables for the motion of the Sun and the Moon.<\/p>\n These models had essentially stayed the same since the work of the 10th century Arab astronomer Abu Batani (Latinised as Albategnius); work that was itself based upon the tables of Ptolemy<\/a> from the second century.<\/p>\n But nowadays things are so much easier and accessible to ordinary people.<\/p>\n Anyone using a good planetarium program on their computer can accurately call up data and graphics for eclipses visible from any location on Earth.<\/p>\n The clockwork nature of the Solar System and Earth\u2019s location with respect to the Sun and Moon can be predicted well in advance.<\/p>\n As a result, free software such as Stellarium<\/a> can be used by anyone to track future eclipses, lunar occultations<\/a>, conjunctions<\/a> or where a certain planet will appear at a certain time.<\/p>\n This article originally appeared in the July 2006 issue of <\/strong><\/em>BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Finding out when the next solar eclipse or lunar eclipse will occur isn’t simply guesswork! The mechanical nature of the Solar System enables incredible accuracy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":44483,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/05\/how-scientists-can-predict-when-the-next-eclipse-will-occur-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/05\/how-scientists-can-predict-when-the-next-eclipse-will-occur-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/05\/how-scientists-can-predict-when-the-next-eclipse-will-occur-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/05\/how-scientists-can-predict-when-the-next-eclipse-will-occur-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/05\/how-scientists-can-predict-when-the-next-eclipse-will-occur-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/05\/how-scientists-can-predict-when-the-next-eclipse-will-occur-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/05\/how-scientists-can-predict-when-the-next-eclipse-will-occur-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Finding out when the next solar eclipse or lunar eclipse will occur isn't simply guesswork! The mechanical nature of the Solar System enables incredible accuracy.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/44482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2019\/05\/PHOTO-2-1bc4c04-e1560256683953.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C482"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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