Solar eclipse of March 7, 1970

A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit on Saturday, March 7, 1970,    with a magnitude of 1.0414. 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. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter 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. As the eclipse occurred only 1.3 days after perigee (on March 6, 1970, at 09:32 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger than the Sun and thus fulfilled this condition.

Totality was visible across southern Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico, the southeast Atlantic coast of the United States, northeast to the Maritimes of eastern Canada, and northern Miquelon-Langlade in the French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Greatest eclipse occurred over Mexico at 11:38 am CST, with totality lasting 3 minutes and 27.65 seconds. Totality over the U.S. lasted up to 3 minutes and 10 seconds. The media declared Perry as the first municipality in Florida to be in the eclipse direct path.

Inclement weather obstructed the viewing from that location and most of the eclipse path through the remainder of the southern states. There was not an eclipse with a greater duration of totality over the contiguous U.S. until April 8, 2024, a period of 54 years.

Michael C. Blackwell, then a church pastor in Carthage, North Carolina and Wake Forest, North Carolina, was preaching in a seminary in the latter the morning before the eclipse. He and his wife, Catherine, got in the car with neighbor Diane, and Michael drove 30 miles to Johnston County to watch the eclipse, which he later recalled in a 2019 Facebook video as the "most awe-inspiring sight the heavens could possibly offer" and the "most inspiring event of a lifetime."

Scientific effects
This eclipse slowed a radio transmission of atomic time from North Carolina to Washington, D.C.



Observations
An observation team from the Swiss Federal Observatory observed the total eclipse in Nejapa and Miahuatlán, Mexico. The weather conditions were good at both locations. Miahuatlán offered particularly good observation conditions with an altitude of 1,620 metres above sea level, high air quality and solar zenith angle of 63° at the time of the eclipse. The team took images of the corona and analyzed them with a polarizing filter. Austrian-American physicist Erwin Saxl and American physicist Mildred Allen reported anomalous changes in the period of a torsion pendulum when observing a partial solar eclipse with a magnitude of 0.954 from Harvard, Massachusetts, called the "Saxl Effect".

In popular culture


CBS showed the first color broadcast of a total eclipse.

This eclipse might be referenced in the second episode of the first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show when a guest of Mary's accidentally exposes a roll of film that Howard Arnell, an ex-boyfriend of Mary's, says, "It's just the pictures I took of the total eclipse of the sun."

The eclipse may be referenced in the hit popular song “You're So Vain” by Carly Simon, although in context, the lyrics more closely align with a different eclipse two years later.

Eclipses in 1970

 * A partial lunar eclipse on February 21, 1970.
 * A total solar eclipse on March 7, 1970.
 * A partial lunar eclipse on August 17, 1970.
 * An annular solar eclipse on August 31, 1970.

Metonic

 * Preceded by: Solar eclipse of May 20, 1966
 * Followed by: Solar eclipse of December 24, 1973

Tzolkinex

 * Preceded by: Solar eclipse of January 25, 1963
 * Followed by: Solar eclipse of April 18, 1977

Half-Saros

 * Preceded by: Lunar eclipse of March 2, 1961
 * Followed by: Lunar eclipse of March 13, 1979

Tritos

 * Preceded by: Solar eclipse of April 8, 1959
 * Followed by: Solar eclipse of February 4, 1981

Solar Saros 139

 * Preceded by: Solar eclipse of February 25, 1952
 * Followed by: Solar eclipse of March 18, 1988

Inex

 * Preceded by: Solar eclipse of March 27, 1941
 * Followed by: Solar eclipse of February 16, 1999

Triad

 * Preceded by: Solar eclipse of May 6, 1883
 * Followed by: Solar eclipse of January 5, 2057