May 23, 2012
Solar eclipse explained badly
This diagram is an approximation of how BBC children’s news program “Newsround” (formerly John Craven’s Newsround) showed how the recent annular eclipse occurred.
Now, there’s simplifying and there’s just getting it totally wrong. I assume that they checked on Wikipedia for how eclipses occur because no one on staff had done a GCSE in science and simply misconstrued the diagram there. If someone on staff did study science at school, then they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
This is closer to what it should be:
No shadow cast, no night side of earth.
I’ve done a new diagram…
Well, the way they had it was almost to imply that there is a ray of light from the top and bottom of the sun that somehow come to a focal point as if some imaginary lens were between sun and moon. An eclipse is just the shadow of the moon on the earth’s surface, their diagram really didn’t show how a shadow forms…
Hello! I follow your blog and I got to say I´m a big fan of yours. I work in the science museum o f my city (San Sebastian, Spain) and I really can not tell which is the big mistake. I don´t mean to be rude but from my point of view, even if It´s true that the picture is extremely simple, the main idea is correct. I am courius about what do you see to say It is “totally wrong”. thanks for helping people get closer to science and for your extraordinary blog! Yours faithfully, Idoia