March 16, 2022
The moon is slowly moving away from Earth. This means that eventually (in millions of years), it will be too far away to completely cover the solar disc during an eclipse, and total solar eclipses will be a thing of the past. Instead, all that would be visible are partial and annular eclipses. An annular eclipse occurs when the moon is farthest from the Earth in its orbit and only covers a portion of the solar disc, leaving a ring around the moon.
The image on the left shows a total solar eclipse, photographed in 1999. The image on the right shows an annular eclipse, which leaves a ring of the solar disc around the silhouette of the moon. Image credit (Left): Luc Viatour, (Right): Stefan Seip / NASA