Solar eclipse of July 31, 1962

Solar eclipse of July 31, 1962
Solar eclipse of July 31, 1962
	Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Annular
Gamma	-0.113
Magnitude	0.9716
Maximum eclipse
Duration	213 sec (3 m 33 s)
Coordinates	12°00′N 5°42′W / 12°N 5.7°W
Max. width of band	103 km (64 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse	12:25:33
References
Saros	135 (36 of 71)
Catalog # (SE5000)	9425

An annular solar eclipse occurred on July 31, 1962. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring only 4.7 days before apogee (Apogee on August 5, 1962), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger. This solar eclipse occurred 44 days after the final game of 1962 FIFA World Cup.

Places inside the annular eclipse included Venezuela, northern Roraima in Brazil, Guyana, Dutch Guiana (today's Suriname) including the capital city Paramaribo, Senegal, Gambia Colony and Protectorate (today's Gambia) including the southern part of the capital city Banjul, Mali including the capital city Bamako, Upper Volta (today's Burkina Faso), Ghana, Togo, Dahomey (today's Benin), Nigeria, Cameroon including the capital city Yaoundé, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Léopoldville (today's DR Congo), Tanganyika (now belonging to Tanzania), northeastern tip of Portuguese Mozambique (today's Mozambique), French Comoros (today's Comoros), Mayotte, and the Malagasy Republic (today's Madagascar). The greatest eclipse was in the area of Kouoro, Mali at 12 N, 5.7 W at 12:25 (UTC) and lasted for 3 minutes.^[1]

Related eclipses[]

Solar eclipses of 1961–1964[]

This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.^[2]

Solar eclipse series sets from 1961–1964
Descending node		Ascending node
Saros	Map	Saros	Map
120	1961 February 15 Total	125	1961 August 11 Annular
130	1962 February 5 Total	135	1962 July 31 Annular
140	1963 January 25 Annular	145	1963 July 20 Total
150	1964 January 14 Partial	155	1964 July 9 Partial
Partial solar eclipses of June 10, 1964 and December 4, 1964 belong in the next lunar year set.

Saros 135[]

It is a part of Saros cycle 135, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 71 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on July 5, 1331. It contains annular eclipses from October 21, 1511 through February 24, 2305, hybrid eclipses on March 8, 2323 and March 18, 2341 and total eclipses from March 29, 2359 through May 22, 2449. The series ends at member 71 as a partial eclipse on August 17, 2593. The longest duration of totality will be 2 minutes, 27 seconds on May 12, 2431.

Series members 27–43 occur between 1800 and 2100:
27	28	29
Apr 24, 1800	May 5, 1818	May 15, 1836
30	31	32
May 26, 1854	Jun 6, 1872	Jun 17, 1890
33	34	35
Jun 28, 1908	Jul 9, 1926	Jul 20, 1944
36	37	38
Jul 31, 1962	Aug 10, 1980	Aug 22, 1998
39	40	41
Sep 1, 2016	Sep 12, 2034	Sep 22, 2052
42	43
Oct 4, 2070	Oct 14, 2088

Inex series[]

This eclipse is a part of the long period inex cycle, repeating at alternating nodes, every 358 synodic months (≈ 10,571.95 days, or 29 years minus 20 days). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee). However, groupings of 3 inex cycles (≈ 87 years minus 2 months) comes close (≈ 1,151.02 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings. In the 18th century:

Solar Saros 127: Total Solar Eclipse of 1731 Jan 08
Solar Saros 128: Annular Solar Eclipse of 1759 Dec 19
Solar Saros 129: Annular Solar Eclipse of 1788 Nov 27

Inex series members between 1801 and 2200:
Near lunar perigee	After lunar apogee Before lunar perigee	Before lunar apogee After lunar perigee
November 9, 1817 (Saros 130)	October 20, 1846 (Saros 131)	September 29, 1875 (Saros 132)
September 9, 1904 (Saros 133)	August 21, 1933 (Saros 134)	July 31, 1962 (Saros 135)
July 11, 1991 (Saros 136)	June 21, 2020 (Saros 137)	May 31, 2049 (Saros 138)
May 11, 2078 (Saros 139)	April 23, 2107 (Saros 140)	April 1, 2136 (Saros 141)
March 12, 2165 (Saros 142)	February 21, 2194 (Saros 143)

In the 23rd century:

Solar Saros 144: Annular Solar Eclipse of 2223 Feb 01
Solar Saros 145: Total Solar Eclipse of 2252 Jan 12
Solar Saros 146: Annular Solar Eclipse of 2280 Dec 22

Metonic series[]

The metonic series repeats eclipses every 19 years (6939.69 days), lasting about 5 cycles. Eclipses occur in nearly the same calendar date. In addition, the octon subseries repeats 1/5 of that or every 3.8 years (1387.94 days). All eclipses in this table occur at the Moon's ascending node.

22 eclipse events between December 24, 1916 and July 31, 2000
December 24–25	October 12–13	July 31-Aug 1	May 18–20	March 7–8
91	93	95	97	99
December 23, 1878	October 12, 1882	July 31, 1886	May 18, 1890	March 7, 1894
101	103	105	107	109
December 23, 1897	October 12, 1901	August 1, 1905	May 19, 1909	March 8, 1913
111	113	115	117	119
December 24, 1916	October 12, 1920	July 31, 1924	May 19, 1928	March 7, 1932
121	123	125	127	129
December 25, 1935	October 12, 1939	August 1, 1943	May 20, 1947	March 7, 1951
131	133	135	137	139
December 25, 1954	October 12, 1958	July 31, 1962	May 20, 1966	March 7, 1970
141	143	145	147	149
December 24, 1973	October 12, 1977	July 31, 1981	May 19, 1985	March 7, 1989
151	153	155	157	159
December 24, 1992	October 12, 1996	July 31, 2000	May 19, 2004	March 7, 2008
161	163	165	167	169
December 24, 2011	October 13, 2015	August 1, 2019	May 19, 2023	March 8, 2027