Ring of fire: Visualizing 5,000 years of solar eclipses

[#1]

When a new Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, the Moon can cast a shadow on certain regions of the Earth. This natural phenomenon creates a solar eclipse, meaning the Moon covers, or eclipses, your view of the Sun if you're in that region. No surprise that in ancient and modern cultures, solar eclipses were attributed to supernatural causes. Even today the darkening of the sky within minutes is still a magical moment to witness.

In this blog post, I explored data from NASA covering an amazing five millennium time span. The data set includes details about the different types, magnitude, duration etc. and for the analysis and visualization I used SAS Visual Analytics on SAS Viya. Loading the data set reveals that there are more than 12,000 eclipses during the 5,000 year period from 2000 BCE to 3000 CE.

To summarize and better visualize these insights, I decided to compile all my information into a single infographic:

Infographic - Visualizing 5,000 years of solar eclipses

You can also view the ultra-high resolution version of the graphic (resolution: 5452x3631, size: 20MB, format: PNG) here.

[frobi]

Big job! But to take a closer look, I need a truly huge monitor. How long did it take you to create this visualization?

[ccaulkins912]

Posting off of @frobi 's comment, it would actually be more interesting to see it in 500 year increments or even 100-years for the planet Earth no less.

[tomrvincent]

I wonder if anybody has tried to see if there is a connection between eclipses and volcanic eruptions.

I found this but it's only for a month.

https://www.earthchangesmedia.com/special-report-list-of-earthquakes-and-volcanoes-related-to-solar-...

[FalkoSchulz]

@frobi - yes, you may need a large monitor to appreciate the details. Creating the actual visualization took a couple of days - but I also spent time preparing the data and understand all things about eclipses. Enjoy!