Which Planet Has the Best Eclipse?

solar eclipses don't just happen here on Earth moons of other planets also pass

between those planets and the Sun resulting in various types of solar eclipses on

Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune and even non- planets like Pluto ays and various

asteroids so where are the best eclipses in the solar system

for that we need a tier list from most to least impressive

total solar eclipses on Earth are after all pretty darn impressive

the midday sun is blotted out and it looks like there's a dark gate

Hole in the Sky we get to see the sun's glowing Corona around the

inky black moon stars come out the Horizon looks like a sunrise is happening

any direction you look and totality happens so rarely on any particular place on

Earth and is over so quickly it's a very rare experience and you don't

really have time to process what's going on

part of why eclipses are so great on Earth is that the sizes and

distances of the Moon and Sun work out so they appear similarly

big in the sky so the moon can block the Sun but not the

corona I think this all makes eclipses

here on Earth a pretty superb

AKA s tier phenomenon

so are eclipses on the other planets in the solar system any

are any of them better than ours

let's start with a non- planet the moon

from the Moon a lunar eclipse

which is when the earth blocks the Sun's light from the Moon is a

solar eclipse but there's no atmosphere on the moon so you don't get any

darkening of the sky or sunrise in all directions

since the sky is dark to begin with and the Earth is so big

it would block the sun's Corona

and take several hours for the eclipse to pass the eclipse would probably feel

similar to lunar KN except that you would see a Dusky red glow around

the entire room of the earth due to sunlight scattering through the Earth's atmosphere

which is pretty neat B tier

Mercury and Venus are next no moons means no eclipses

unless you count the fact that mercury sometimes passes between the Sun and Venus

but it's way too small to do anything we'd remotely consider to be eclipse

likee end here for no eclipses

Mars does have eclipses

but both of its moons are too small relative to the Sun to cause

a total eclipse Phobos is close enough to Mars that it can cover as

much as 30% of the Sun during eclipses

and you get a lumpy ring youd need to wear solar glasses to see

it though C tier the other Moon deos is too far away to cover

more than about 1% of the Sun and appears small enough you'd just barely

even be able to see it with 2020 Vision through solar glasses

D tier Jupiter has some spectacular eclipses

at least viewed from space it has enough moons and big moons close in

and the moons orbit close to the same plane as the Sun so that

Jupiter regularly has eclipses

sometimes multiple at the same time but do they look any good from Jupiter

itself say floating in its upper atmosphere

three of the big moons are so big they block the Sun and probably

most of the Corona

and their Shadows would be large enough in the atmosphere you probably wouldn't see

much 360° Sunrise either it would look more like nighttime

bti Kalisto though only appears about 1 and 1/2 times the size of the

sun and so would allow you to see the Corona and the 3 60°

Sunrise Jupiter is also big enough you might see the surface of Kalisto itself

illuminated in reflected Jupiter glow does that make it cooler than how our moon

looks like a dark hole in the sky I don't know and the Sun

and Kalisto are about five times smaller viewed from Jupiter than our moon viewed

from Earth but unlike Earth where eclipses only happen a few times per year

Kalisto eclipses happen approximately

every 16 days for 3 years straight

and then have a 3-year break all in all I'm giving Kalisto eclipses on

Jupiter a tier Jupiter's smaller inner moons all have partial eclipses

substantial enough to be interesting viewing by the human eye with with eclipse glasses

so they get C tier while all of its outer moons are too small

and far away for their really boring partial eclipses to be visible without a

serious telescope F tier

Saturn has almost 150

known moons plus rings

so it has all sorts of eclipses

about 18 of its moons are some combination of big enough and close enough

to see them from Saturn with the naked eye six of them are too

big and their eclipses probably look mostly like nighttime

so B tier and eight of them are too small to fully block the

Sun and would require solar glasses

I'm putting the largest three of these in C tier and the others in

D tier however four of Saturn's moons are similar enough to the sun in

their apparent sizes that their eclipses would be similar to total eclipses on Earth

you'd see the corona

the deeply Colored Sky and 360°

Sunrise a dark hole in the sky where the sun was or the moon

illuminated by Saturn's glow and so on I'm putting two of these in a

tier rather than S because the sun is just so much smaller viewed from

Saturn but two of them the moons Pandora and Prometheus

are just the right size to create both Total and partial and annular eclipses

they're the only moons in the rest of the solar system we know for

sure can do that other than our moon

plus they have potato likee shapes so partial and annular eclipses would be more

visually interesting than our boring spherical Moon

s tier okay uh editor hading me here I just realized that what I

said about Pandora and Prometheus being the only other moons that can have total

and anular eclipses that's wrong

Janice and Epimetheus can also both have total and annular eclipses

and probably perta on Uranus

too here's what I missed if an eclipse happens at Sunrise or sunset or

near the poles then the moon causing it will be farther away and thus

appear smaller than if it causes an eclipse at noon or on the equator

and when a moon appears smaller it might change from being a total eclipse

to an annular eclipse

or reveal more of the sun's Corona

this sunrise or moonrise

shrinking effect is technically true for all moons and all eclipses

and is the cause of hybrid annular total eclipses here on Earth but if

a moon is far away relative to the size of the planet then the

effect isn't particularly big which is the case here on Earth I updated my

Eclipse calculation spreadsheet which now shows Janice and Epimetheus

can have partial and total eclipses too

so they're back to S tier the other place where the sunrise effect makes

a big difference is on Mars

whose moons are noticeably bigger overhead and smaller when viewed on the horizon

okay the rest of Saturn's moons are too small and far away to see

from Saturn with the human eye F tier

but Saturn has rings too is it technically an eclipse when Saturn's rings cast

a shadow on the planet I don't know and I don't care it looks

spectacular s tier once you get past Saturn you're far enough away from the

Sun that it starts to appear more like the star that it is just

a point in the sky rather than having a distinguishable

disc I mean even from Saturn the sun only appears 10% as big across

as from here on Earth Uranus is almost twice as far from the Sun

as Saturn so the Sun appears half as big again and it's even worse

on Neptune where the sun only appears slightly larger than

and Venus do from Earth with the Sun so small in the sky it's

a lot easier for the apparent size of moons to be way bigger than

the Sun for example Uranus has around 15 moons that appear way too big

relative to the Sun and would result in nighttime like total eclipses

with maybe just a little 360°

sunrise on the best of them I'm putting them in C tier the moon

perita has the best total eclipse on Uranus

which would be a tier except for how small the sun is so B

tier there are two more moons that aren't big enough for total eclipses but

whose annular eclipses are technically big enough to see with solar glasses

D tier all the other known moons are way too too small F tier

Neptune isn't much better seven of its moons appear way too big and completely

block the sun D tier hippocamp

is actually a great size appearing just barely bigger than the Sun and probably

has a 360° Sunrise views of the Corona and the rest

again B tier because of how small the sun is the rest of Neptune's

known moons are too small to see F tier

finally we get to Pluto

yeah it's not a planet but it still has eclipses

problem is they're horrible

Pluto has five known moons and the smallest two are actually the perfect size

for just barely total or mostly full annular eclipses

except from Pluto the Sun appears has just a point of light in the

sky it's essentially a really bright star so you couldn't see any detail of

partial or annular eclipses without a telescope

and there's no atmosphere which means no 360°

sunrise or the like for total eclipses and the Sun is probably too small

for the corona to look like more than a star either basically if sticks

or caros fully eclipse the sun it just feels like normal nighttime

and when sticks or carros have annular eclipses you wouldn't notice anything other than

a slight dimming of the sun D tier the other three moons appear substantially

bigger than the Sun and easily Eclipse it especially Pluto's double dwarf planet partner

AKA its oversized Mo Karen

given the minuscule size of the sun viewed from Pluto and Pluto's lack of

atmosphere these are not at all interesting eclipses

the only reason they're not F tier is that they're technically in Eclipse you

can see so D tier and we're not done yet there are still other

eclipses ays another dwarf planet even farther out than Pluto has one known moon

but it's so much bigger than the Sun and ays also has no atmosphere

that the eclipse is definitely detier

there are also a lot of double asteroids in our solar system and there's

enough Variety in their sizes and distances and such that some of the moonlets

appear much bigger than the Sun and some much smaller and some very close

in size they're mostly closer to the Sun than Jupiter and some get as

close as Earth so the sun is a decent size in their Skies

but they all suffer from a similar problem as Pluto and ays

no atmosphere which makes for fairly boring eclipses

the best of these are probably C tier if you want to get really

nerdy of course it's certainly possible for moons of planets like Jupiter and Saturn

to Eclipse each other too but evaluating the relative distances and apparent sizes relative

to the Sun for all possible Moon combinations and positions for hundreds of moons

is definitely beyond the scope of this video

and that completes our list thanks for

watching oh and I have one more thing the visuals on this t-shirt

and in the video of what eclipses might look like on other planets

came from minute laabs go to minute labs.

i/ eclipses to explore for yourself what eclipses might look like on Mars Jupiter

Saturn Uranus and Neptune

this video was supported in part by NASA's

heliophysics education activation team which loves solar eclipses

NASA Heat's mission is to engage with Learners of all ages like you and

me and to deepen our understanding of our closest star and its effects on

earth and the solar system solar eclipses are a great way to experience a

different side of the Sun than we normally do like literally the corona extending

out from its sides if you ever have the opportunity to see a total

eclipse I highly recommend it and NASA does too

thanks to NASA heat for their support