Weston Turville U3A Newsletter – March 2015

Superstitions surrounding solar eclipses still exist today. Many people believe that solar eclipses can be a dangerous to pregnant women and their unborn child. In India, some people fast during a solar eclipse because they believe that any food cooked during the time will be poisonous, and in Italy it is believed that flowers planted during a solar eclipse are more colourful than those planted at other times of the year. A solar eclipse can only happen at new moon, when the moon directly blocks sight of the sun from certain places in the world. It can take place up to five times a year, though according to Nasa, only 25 years in the past 5,000 have had five solar eclipses. In the last 500 years read more …