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Solar System

Eclipses

Eclipses
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   high interest, readability grades 5 to 7
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.36

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    alignment, viewer, atmosphere, projector, outer, totally, rarely, therefore, especially, lunar, sunglasses, directly, partial, eclipse, maximum, direct
     content words:    Sunglasses DO NOT

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Eclipses
By Patti Hutchison 		  
1     The sky begins to grow dark, yet it is noon. The sun appears to have a little bite taken out of it. What is going on? You are experiencing a solar eclipse.
 
2     The full moon was bright in the night sky. All of a sudden, a corner appears to be carved out of it. A lunar eclipse is about to take place.
 
3     Both the sun and the moon experience eclipses. An eclipse happens when the light is blocked. There are both partial and total eclipses. What causes these awesome events?
 
4     A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly between the sun and the earth. The moon actually blocks our view of the sun. How can this be, when the sun is much larger than the moon? Remember that the sun is much farther away from the earth than the moon is. This causes them to appear to be about the same size as we look at them in the sky.

Paragraphs 5 to 11:
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