The path of totality, which eclipse maps show to be 70 miles wide, is actually narrower than that, by up to 1 mile, according to some experts.
An article by the Kansas City Star discusses this:
Those maps, provided by NASA and others, show a crisply defined, 70-mile-wide path of totality where the moon will block 100 percent of the sun. But they are not as precise as they appear, at least on their edges.
The southern edge of the path as shown on the maps could be off by as little as the length of a football field or as much as a half-mile, eclipse mapping experts say. Likewise for the northern edge, meaning the path of totality might be just 69 miles wide.
“This is an issue. This is really an issue, but it’s not advertised. … Yeah, all the maps are wrong,” Mike Kentrianakis, who is the solar eclipse project manager for the American Astronomical Society and who routinely consults with NASA, told The Star.
Xavier Jubier, a French engineer whose calculations have been used to create the interactive Google maps of the eclipse, confirmed to The Star by email that the actual path of the totality is slightly narrower than the 70 miles shown on current maps.
Ernest Wright, who created maps and other multimedia presentations on the eclipse for NASA, said he thought the map might be narrower by about 100 meters, slightly longer than a football field. He also said it’s possible that Kentrianakis is correct in his estimation that the path is narrower by a half-mile or more.
The article explains the reason the path of totality is narrower than the eclipse maps indicate is because they use a 41-year old value for the radius of the Sun, which is now known to be too small a value:
Wright explained that eclipse maps are made based on what is known about the relative sizes and positions of the moon and the sun. “We have really good information about the orbit of the moon, the positions of the sun, the positions of the Earth. All of that is really well nailed down,” Wright said. “In order to get more accuracy, we need to take into account the mountains and valleys on the moon, and the elevations on the Earth. And we’re starting to do that, as well.”
The size of the moon, in fact, has been measured to within a meter, and its position in the heavens has been measured to within a centimeter. “But the last sort of uncertainty might surprise you,” Wright said. “It’s the size of the sun.”
Jubier said that the current maps are accurate using the the 696,000-kilometer radius and other standards agreed upon in 1976 at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union. “This is perfectly accurate but we know it does use a solar diameter that is not large enough. Why don’t we change the value(?)” Jubier wrote. “Well simply because the IAU (International Astronomical Union) has not yet approved a new value. This is part of the research we’re doing and for which we’re looking for funding.”
He continued, “So technically speaking if the Sun is larger than the adopted IAU value, and we know it is, the eclipse path is necessarily narrower and our tools can simulate this, yet the standard maps for the public will still retain the currently adopted solar radius until a new value has been accepted."
