It's basically a partial solar eclipse at sunrise. Depending on the orbit on the moon the moon can look bigger or in this case slightly smaller than the sun. Which in this case creates this crescent like sun.
Well, not actually true. Sunrise and sunset shift the spectrum of the sun toward red because it has to travel through like 20-30km more of troposphere. Add onto that the fact a large portion of the full disk is often obscured by the horizon, and the amount of damaging UV light and total light reaching your eyes is much, much lower than usual.
It's still not advisable to look or stare at the sun, it's still bad. But sunrise and sunset are definitely safer than say, mid-day.
You seem to know what you are talking about, i have an unrelated question thats been puzzling me a lot, why do people say not to look at an eclipse with bare eyes and they dont really say it about looking at the sun in general? Isnt it more dangerous to look at it NOT during an eclipse??? Or is it just as dangerous, but you look at the sun longer during an eclipse than not and so it is more advisable to warn people? I just wanna be sure its not more dangerous to look at an eclipse than to look at the sun because i have no idea why it would be
You have to remember, our eyes respond to how bright the sun is on the visible spectrum, not how bright it is on the UV spectrum. During an eclipse, it gets much dimmer on the visible spectrum, which makes our eyes relax and dilate more, but it is still absolutely screaming on the UV spectrum, allowing all that damaging radiation straight into the eye.
It's also easier to look at for longer because again, not as visibly bright, lulling you into a false sense of security.
Combine those 2 effects and you're more likely to walk away with eye damage.
So, like I said, the reason it's safer to look at the sun during sunrise and sunset is mostly because it scatters a lot more of the UV and other higher energy blue light out of its spectrum (which is also why you don't get as badly sunburnt during the evening hours)...but it's still not great to do so. Since most eclipses are mid-day events, looking at them is especially dangerous as your eye kinda just opens wide for a max UV index picture of the Sun.
I would strongly recommend using eclipse glasses or a welding helmet to look at it. It can give blind spots in your eyes if you expose them to the sun for too long
Who cares? It's low on the horizon, so it's getting maximum atmospheric filtration. Also, the moon and the earth are blocking quite a lot too, as they're obscuring the sun. It's no worse than just generally having the sun in your field of view.
These people saying it hurts your eyes are forgetting this is sunrise and you can look at sunrise/set just fine because there's way more air scattering the light between you and the sun
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u/x_Rn 1d ago
Can someone explain how this occurs?