Ciencia
Why aren’t there solar eclipses every month?
If we look towards the Sun from Earth, the Moon passes ‘in front of’ the Earth every 28 days. We might therefore think that there should be a solar eclipse every month, but this is not the case.
Although we have a new moon every month, eclipses do not occur every lunar cycle because the Moon’s orbit is not perfectly aligned with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun: the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun and the plane in which the Moon orbits the Earth do not coincide exactly, but are slightly tilted relative to one another, forming an angle of 5 degrees. So, most of the time, the Moon passes slightly above or below the Sun as seen from Earth.
Although we have a new moon every month, eclipses do not occur every lunar cycle because the Moon’s orbit is not perfectly aligned with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun: the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun and the plane in which the Moon orbits the Earth do not coincide exactly, but are slightly tilted relative to one another, forming an angle of 5 degrees. So, most of the time, the Moon passes slightly above or below the Sun as seen from Earth.