Why Do Eclipses Travel WEST to EAST?

The sun rises in the east, the moon rises in the east, and the stars rise in the east... but solar eclipses, oddly, come from the west. If total eclipses are caused by the sun and the moon, why don't they behave like the sun and the moon?

This Product is supported by the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (NASA HEAT), part of NASA’s Science Activation portfolio.

The material contained in this document is based upon work supported by a National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA) grant or cooperative agreement. Any questions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this materials are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA.

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Created by Henry Reich

[struanpeat]

An april 1st upload from an otherwise pretty inavtive channel that's not an april fools joke? Well thats a breath of freshair

[NickWrightDataYT]

This reminds me of that Calvin & Hobbes comic where the his dad explains how a record works--that different parts are traveling different speeds and yet the whole thing always travels at the same rpm. Last panel is Calvin deeply distressed still thinking about it and coming to terms with it late at night lol

[doxielain]

May your skies be clear, everyone! Good luck on Monday!

[gregsquires]

I've never seen such a clear, concise explanation of the path of an eclipse. Great video!

[Titanic-wobq]

So basically:
It's just a mere coincidence given the rotation speed and size of our planet and the orbital speed and distance of the moon, just like how we live at a time where the Moon has the same average angular size as the Sun.

[Eric-ssli]

This has bothered me for so long. Thank you so much for explaining it so clearly.

[apollomartin]

mars's moons revolve in the same direction around mars but appear to move opposite directions in the sky. this is one of my favorite mildly cursed moon facts

[gfabasic]

I live in Atlantic Canada and I've been looking forward to this eclipse for about 5 years now. Thanks for a greatly informative video.

[jacekwesoowski]

A bit tangential, but this is basically the first time ever when I gladly and willingly watched the ad at the end of a YouTube video.
(I'm 43 and I mainly clicked the video to see if my guess was right (it was) but I really liked your comprehensive explanation and I wish we had this kind of content back when I was in school)

[donnahall]

If the speaker would slow down and give us a moment to absorb the information, this might make sense!

[BobbieGWhiz]

Hmmm, I always thought it was a lot simpler than this. All celestial objects (including the moon) passively rise in the east and set in the west (due to the earth’s rotation in the opposite direction), but since the moon is actively moving in a path west to east (about 13° daily), then it makes sense that the moon’s movement would appear to cause an eclipse from west to east.

[sdshlanta]

Quality video! I never thought about it that way

[PhilipMurphyExtra]

Quality video and straight to the point

[Shanndah]

Thank You for this answer! I have been asking so many Science channels this question and you were the 1st to answer. Much appreciated!

[TheSuperiorQuickscoper]

0:45 is similar to the retrograde of Mercury optical illusion. Since Mercury's orbital speed is faster than Earth's, when Mercury catches up to Earth, its orbital trajectory appears to loop back on itself from our vantage point.

[SuprisedSuprise]

Is the use of miles in a physics video a sick april 1st joke?

[candidatemoves]

Solid differential geometry exercise for those learning about curves and surfaces.

[AntonLauridsen]

It would have been nice to have the SI units as well

[WTLanier]

Seems like this video contains some really informative information, but it’s presented so quickly that you would need to have a supercomputer brain to digest it all in real time. I was lost about 15 seconds in.

[TheOtherSteel]

I hope this is a sign of a new renaissance in minutephysics videos