So is Earth The Only Planet In Our Solar System That Has Total Solar Eclipses?

Hope everyone in Dallas, Texas, and all who were in the path of totality enjoyed the total solar eclipse today. It was pretty cloudy where I'm at in East Texas, but we still managed to get a couple good looks.

It was eerie when the street lights came on at 1:40 pm, then the temperature dropped. It really seemed like all of Texas went quiet for a few minutes. Everything just kinda stopped down.

While some people are convinced that the solar eclipse means trouble is brewing on a celestial plane, it's actually fairly common and completely predictable. Yeah, that's right.

According to CBS, "An eclipse occurs every one to three years somewhere around the globe, but are often only visible from Earth's poles or from the middle of the ocean."

What made this total solar eclipse so special then?

Well, it's not very often that the path of totality is viewable by so many people for so long, in this case a big ol' chunk of North America.

Turns out there will be eight total solar eclipses visible from North America in the 21st century, "with one occurring about every 12 years, on average. The next total solar eclipse to cross North America is predicted to occur on Aug. 23, 2044," according to NASA.

These events are all predictable and science has known that today's full solar eclipse was coming for decades.

So is Earth The Only Planet In Our Solar System That Has Total Eclipses?

While it's true that Earth is the only rocky planet that has total solar eclipses, as neither Venus nor Mercury have moons, and Mars's two moons are too small to completely block out the Sun, our giant gas counterparts do experience them, but there's a catch.

"Our solar system’s four giant gas planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune) have moons that are the right size and distance, but because they don’t have a solid surface to stand on, it would be tough to see an eclipse from there," according to exploratorium.com