What planets do not have eclipses and why?
1 Answer
Mercury and Venus do not have eclipses because they don't have any moons.
Explanation:
A planet can only have eclipses if it has at least one moon. For a planet to experience a total solar eclipse the moon's angular diameter must be greater than the angular diameter of the Sun as viewed from the planet's surface.
Mercury and Venus do not have any moons so they can't have eclipses. Mars has two moons but they are too small to cause a total solar eclipse.
Earth is especially good for eclipses as the angular radii of the Moon and the Sun as seen from the Earth's surface are nearly the same.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have large moons which can cause eclipses. Arguably as none of these planets have a solid surface there is no viewing point for an eclipse.
Pluto has a large moon and has eclipses.
All moons have eclipses where the planet passes between the Sun and the moon. Most moons in the solar system are tidally locked to their parent planet which means that the parent planet is only visible from one hemisphere of the moon. This means that only the hemisphere facing the planet can have an eclipse. When a lunar eclipse is visible from the Earth, a solar eclipse is visible from the side of the Moon which faces the Earth.
