•The most solar eclipses of any type that can occur on Earth within a year is five.

•A total solar eclipse occurs about every 1.5 years.

•In ancient Greece, a solar eclipse was seen as a sign that the gods were angry and was thought to be an omen of bad things to come. The word eclipse comes from the Greek word ellipsis, which means “being abandoned.”

•Solar eclipses will come to an end. In about 600 million years, due to tides on Earth and the slowing down of the Earth’s rotation, the moon will be too far away from the Earth to cover the sun, thus bringing an end to solar eclipses.

•The longest duration for a total solar eclipse possible is 7.5 minutes.

•On a good night, you can see about 19,000,000,000,000,000 miles, easily. That’s 19 quadrillion miles, the approximate distance to the bright star Deneb in Cygnus.

•The sun is the closest star to Earth, but it is still located 4.24 light years away. It would take 70,000 years for our fastest spacecraft to reach the sun.

•There are 88 officially recognized constellations in the night sky. Most are named after animals, mythical beasts, and characters from Greek and Roman mythology.

•The Egyptians created the earliest accurate star chart so far discovered, which is some 3,500 years old and dates from 1534 BC.

•The Moon is shaped like a lemon, with flattened poles and bulges on both the near and far sides around its equator.

•Normally, about 2,500 individual stars are visible to the human eye without using any special equipment. But because of light pollution, you see just 200 to 300 from today’s suburbs and fewer than a dozen from a typical city.

•There are mainly five types of light pollution. They are Light trespass, Skyglow, Light clutter, Glare, and Over-illumination.

•Light pollution disrupts the migratory pattern of certain species of birds.

•In lakes, light pollution can prevent species of zooplankton from consuming surface algae which causes algal blooms. Consequently, plant life in the lakes is hampered, and water quality is also affected.

•Street lighting contributes to 50% of the sky glow in urban areas.

•Hong Kong has the worst case of light pollution in the world.

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