Sometimes a little piece of the sun suddenly seems to disappear. And when more and more of it disappears until finally the bright sunlight is blotted out, and they day is plunged into darkness.
The stars can be seen and chickens often go to roost. But after a little while, a little bit of the sun begins to show again. Then more and more of it appears. And in a few minutes, the “night” is over.
Long ago, many people thought that a huge dragon is the sky had swallowed the sun.
Today, we know that when there is an eclipse of the sun, it is really the moon that blots out the sunlight when the moon gets between the earth and the sun.
Of course, the moon is much smaller than the sun, but it is so much closer than the sun that he two appear to have almost the same size. There are eclipse of the moon, too. The moon does not five off any light.
Quite often the moon is its journey around the earth travels into the earth’s shadow. With the earth shutting off the sunlight, the moon stops shining.
