Visualizations by
Ernie Wright
Released on April 30, 2019
During the July 2, 2019 total solar eclipse, the Moon's umbral shadow will scud across South America, through Chile and Argentina, in just 7 minutes before sliding off the Earth's surface as both the Sun and Moon set. The path of this shadow, the path of totality, is where observers will see the Moon completely cover the Sun for about two and a half minutes.
This animation shows the umbra and its path in a unique way. Elevations on the Earth's surface and the irregular lunar limb (the silhouette edge of the Moon's disk) are both fully accounted for, and they both have dramatic and surprising effects on the shape of the umbra and the location of the path. The umbra becomes a polygon with edges that are ruffled by the high elevations of the Andes. To read more about these effects, go here.
The animation provides an overhead view of the umbra and runs at a rate of 30× real time — every minute of the eclipse takes two seconds in the animation.
LRO/SELENE/LOLA/TC/DIgital Elevation Model also referred to as: SLDEM2015
Model
A digital elevation model of the Moon derived from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter and the SELENE Terrain Camera. See the description in Icarus. The data is here.
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation:
Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0