A total

solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...

occurred at the Moon's

ascending node An orbital node is either of the two points where an orbit intersects a plane of reference to which it is inclined. A non-inclined orbit, which is contained in the reference plane, has no nodes. Planes of reference Common planes of referenc ...

of orbit on Sunday, September 21, 1941, with a

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

of 1.0379. A

occurs when the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

passes between

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

and the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's

apparent diameter The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular separation (in units of angle) describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the '' visual ...

is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring about 2.25 days before

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

(on September 23, 1941, at 10:40 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger. The path of totality crossed the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

(today's

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

and

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan. It consists of three main island groups—the Okinawa Islands, the Sakishima Islands, and the Daitō Islands—spread across a maritime zone approximately 1,000 kilometers east to west an ...

and

South Seas Mandate The South Seas Mandate, officially the Mandate for the German Possessions in the Pacific Ocean Lying North of the Equator, was a League of Nations mandate in the " South Seas" given to the Empire of Japan by the League of Nations following W ...

(the parts now belonging to Northern Mariana and

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an island country west of the International Date Line and north of the equator in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The territory consists of 29 c ...

) in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, and ended in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. A partial eclipse was visible for most of

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Northern Australia The unofficial geographic term Northern Australia includes those parts of Queensland and Western Australia north of latitude 26th parallel south, 26° and all of the Northern Territory. Those local government areas of Western Australia and Q ...

, and northern

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

Observations

China

The Chinese Solar Eclipse Observation Committee sent two teams - one led by

Zhang Yuzhe Zhang Yuzhe (; 16 February 1902 – 21 July 1986), also known as Yu-Che Chang, was a Chinese astronomer and director of the Purple Mountain Observatory who is widely regarded as the father of modern Chinese astronomy. He studied the light curv ...

and Gao Lu to the Taiyue Temple in

Lintao County Lintao County () is administratively under the control of Dingxi, Gansu province, China. History Pottery from the Majiayao culture (3300 to 2000 BC) has been found in Lintao. Until the 20th century, Lintao was known as Didao (). The Battle of ...

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

, and the other to Chong'an County (now

Wuyishan City Wuyishan City ( zh, c=武夷山市, p=Wǔyíshān Shì) is a county-level city in the municipal region of Nanping, in the northwest of Fujian, People's Republic of China, which borders Jiangxi to the northwest. It corresponds to the former Chong'a ...

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

. The Lintao team started from

Kunming Kunming is the capital and largest city of the province of Yunnan in China. The political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province, Kunming is also the seat of the provincial government. During World War II, Kunming was a Ch ...

, where a number of universities and institutes of higher education were evacuated during the war, on June 30, 1941, and arrived in Lintao on August 13. They traveled by car for a total of 3,200 kilometres and made science popularization speeches along the way. China was under the rule of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

and the eclipse occurred during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...

. An artillery regiment was stationed near Lintao, and 20 fighter jets were stationed at

Lanzhou Lanzhou is the capital and largest city of Gansu province in northwestern China. Located on the banks of the Yellow River, it is a key regional transportation hub, connecting areas further west by rail to the eastern half of the country. His ...

Airport ready to intercept Japanese planes. The foggy weather in Lintao suddenly cleared up during the eclipse, making the observation successful. The solar

chromosphere A chromosphere ("sphere of color", from the Ancient Greek words χρῶμα (''khrôma'') 'color' and σφαῖρα (''sphaîra'') 'sphere') is the second layer of a Stellar atmosphere, star's atmosphere, located above the photosphere and below t ...

spectrum A spectrum (: spectra or spectrums) is a set of related ideas, objects, or properties whose features overlap such that they blend to form a continuum. The word ''spectrum'' was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of co ...

, a movie of the process of the eclipse and three

corona Corona (from the Latin for 'crown') most commonly refers to: * Stellar corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun or another star * Corona (beer), a Mexican beer * Corona, informal term for the coronavirus or disease responsible for the COVID-19 ...

images were taken. The brightness of the corona was measured to be 0.37 times that of the full moon. In Chong'an, the cloudy weather resulted in poor results of astronomical observations, but data of the change in

Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from structure of Earth, Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from ...

during the total phase was still measured. In November 1934, astronomer organized the Chinese Solar Eclipse Observation Committee to prepare for observations of the

solar eclipse of June 19, 1936 file:1936 uludag.jpg, left, Astronomers in Turkey observing the 1936 eclipse A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's Lunar node, descending node of orbit on Friday, June 19, 1936, with a Magnitude of eclipse, magnitude of 1.0329. A solar ecl ...

and this eclipse in 1941. Due to the

Soviet-German War The Eastern Front, also known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and its successor states, and the German–Soviet War in modern Germany and Ukraine, was a Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II ...

and the Second Sino-Japanese War, European and American astronomers did not make field observations in the

and China.

Japan

Several universities in Japan made observations in

Ishigaki Island , also known as ''Ishigakijima'', is a Japanese island south-west of Okinawa Hontō and the second-largest island of the Yaeyama Island group, behind Iriomote Island. It is located approximately south-west of Okinawa Hontō. It is within t ...

Okinawa most commonly refers to: * Okinawa Prefecture, Japan's southernmost prefecture * Okinawa Island, the largest island of Okinawa Prefecture * Okinawa Islands, an island group including Okinawa itself * Okinawa (city), the second largest city in th ...

Pengjia Islet Pengjia Islet (), also known as P'eng-chia Hsü, Hōka-sho, Agincourt, Dashihshan Islet, Chaolai Islet, P'eng-chia Yü or Pengchia Islet, is an islet north of Taiwan and is administered under Zhongzheng District, Keelung City. It is under Taiwan ...

Taiwan under Japanese rule The Geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu, Penghu Islands, became an annexed territory of the Empire of Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan Province, Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki a ...

, and Chinese sites including

Dongyin Island Dongyin Township (Tungyin) ( zh, c=, p=Dōngyǐn Xiāng, w=Tung1-yin3 Hsiang1; Foochow Romanized: Dĕ̤ng-īng-hiŏng) is an insular Township (Taiwan), rural township which is part of Lienchiang County (the Matsu Islands), Fujian Province, Repub ...

in Fujian,

Nanchang Nanchang is the capital of Jiangxi, China. Located in the north-central part of the province and in the hinterland of Poyang Lake Plain, it is bounded on the west by the Jiuling Mountains, and on the east by Poyang Lake. Because of its strate ...

Jiangxi ; Gan: ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = , translit_lang1_type3 = , translit_lang1_info3 = , image_map = Jiangxi in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_caption = Location ...

, in

Xianning Xianning ( zh, s= , t=/ , p=Xiánníng) is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Hubei province, People's Republic of China, bordering Jiangxi to the southeast and Hunan to the southwest. It is known as the "City of Osmanthus". Geography and c ...

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

, in Jiayu, Hubei, and

Hankou Hankou, alternately romanized as Hankow (), was one of the three towns (the other two were Wuchang and Hanyang) merged to become modern-day Wuhan city, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers w ...

(now in

Wuhan Wuhan; is the capital of Hubei, China. With a population of over eleven million, it is the most populous city in Hubei and the List of cities in China by population, eighth-most-populous city in China. It is also one of the nine National cent ...

). Among them, Ishigaki Island had the sunniest weather and the most successful observation results. Results were poor due to thick clouds in Heshengqiao and Yanzhou where teams of

Tokyo Imperial University The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public university, public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several Edo peri ...

Kyoto Imperial University , or , is a national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen graduate schools, and t ...

, and

Tohoku Imperial University is a public research university in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. It is colloquially referred to as or . Established in 1907 as the third of the Imperial Universities, after the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, it initially focused on scien ...

went.

Soviet Union

The

Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (un ...

began preparations in 1939. It was originally planned to involve 28 agencies, but due to the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, only 7 observation teams were formed. The observation sites were

Almaty Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains ...

and

Kyzylorda Kyzylorda ( , formerly known as Kzyl-Orda (), Ak-Mechet (Ак-Мечеть), Perovsk (Перовск), and Fort-Perovsky (Форт-Перовский), is a city in south-central Kazakhstan, capital of Kyzylorda Region and former capital of the ...

in present-day

. The weather was good in Almaty with many observation results, while there were some clouds in Kyzylorda but several images were still taken. European and American astronomers did not go to the Soviet Union due to the war.

Eclipse details

Shown below are two tables displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. The first table outlines times at which the moon's penumbra or umbra attains the specific parameter, and the second table describes various other parameters pertaining to this eclipse.

Eclipse season

This eclipse is part of an

eclipse season An eclipse season is a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Eclipse seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of the Orbit of the Moon, Moon's orbital plane (orbital inclination, tilted five degrees to the ecliptic, Earth ...

, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a

fortnight A fortnight is a unit of time equal to 14 days (two weeks). The word derives from the Old English term , meaning "" (or "fourteen days", since the Anglo-Saxons counted by nights). Astronomy and tides In astronomy, a ''lunar fortnight'' is hal ...

Related eclipses

Eclipses in 1941

* A partial lunar eclipse on March 13. * An annular solar eclipse on March 27. * A partial lunar eclipse on September 5. * A total solar eclipse on September 21.

Metonic

* Preceded by: Solar eclipse of December 2, 1937 * Followed by:

Solar eclipse of July 9, 1945 A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit on Monday, July 9, 1945, with a magnitude of 1.018. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Su ...

Tzolkinex

* Preceded by:

Solar eclipse of August 10, 1934 An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Friday, August 10, 1934, with a magnitude of 0.9436. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image ...

* Followed by:

Solar eclipse of November 1, 1948 A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Monday, November 1, 1948, with a magnitude of 1.0231. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of ...

Half-Saros

* Preceded by: Lunar eclipse of September 14, 1932 * Followed by: Lunar eclipse of September 26, 1950

Tritos

* Preceded by:

Solar eclipse of October 21, 1930 A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit between Tuesday, October 21 and Wednesday, October 22, 1930, with a magnitude of 1.023. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or ...

* Followed by: Solar eclipse of August 20, 1952

Solar Saros 143

* Preceded by:

Solar eclipse of September 10, 1923 A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's Lunar node, ascending node of orbit between Monday, September 10, and Tuesday, September 11, 1923, with a Magnitude of eclipse, magnitude of 1.043. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between ...

* Followed by:

Solar eclipse of October 2, 1959 A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit on Friday, October 2, 1959, with a magnitude of 1.0325. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of th ...

Inex

* Preceded by:

Solar eclipse of October 10, 1912 A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Thursday, October 10, 1912, with a magnitude of 1.0229. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image o ...

* Followed by: Solar eclipse of August 31, 1970

Triad

* Preceded by: Solar eclipse of November 20, 1854 * Followed by: Solar eclipse of July 22, 2028

Solar eclipses of 1939–1942

Saros 143

Metonic series

Tritos series

Inex series

References

External links

The Total Solar Eclipse of September 21, 1941Solar eclipse of September 21, 1941
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solar Eclipse Of September 21, 1941 1941 09 21 1941 in science 1941 09 21 September 1941