How do people know when an eclipse is going to happen?

Answer 1

The motions of the moon and planets are now so well analyzed, understood, and documented

that their positions can be calculated hundreds of years into the past and future.

Predicting eclipses is the easy one. The harder one is predicting where a planet will be in the future,

accurately enough so that we can launch a space probe to the planet, and be sure that the planet will be

exactly there when the space probe gets there.

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Answer 2

The Earth and the Moon are in stable orbits, and move under the influence of gravity. It's fairly straightforward to calculate when the Sun, Moon and Earth will line up.

What's REALLY impressive is that the builders of Stonehenge managed to build their eclipse-predicting computer 3000 years ago. Because that's what Stonehenge is; a device for predicting eclipses.

Answer 3

Today, like everything else, we do it with computers. The motions of the Earth and the Moon are entirely predictable, and we know to the second when every eclipse will start and end.

The real question is, how did the druids of 3000 years ago build Stonehenge, which is an eclipse calculator?

Answer 4

People know when an eclipse is going to happen through astronomical predictions based on the positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. These predictions are made using scientific models and calculations that take into account the orbits of these celestial bodies. Eclipse predictions are typically accurate to within a few seconds.

Answer 5

the seismograph