Black drop effect
Okay, so imagine you have a crayon and you want to draw a line between two dots. You start drawing the line and when you get really close to the second dot, the crayon gets really fat and it's hard to get it to the other side without making a mess. That's kind of like what happens in space when one planet passes in front of another planet.
The black drop effect happens when the planet that's passing in front (let's call it "planet A") gets so close to the planet being passed in front of (let's call that one "planet B") that it looks like they're almost touching. But because of some weird things that happen with light, it looks like there's a little black drop connecting them.
It's kind of like trying to draw that line with the fat crayon - the light from planet A gets all spread out and makes that little black "drop" between the two planets. Scientists are still figuring out exactly why this happens, but it's a cool thing to study!
The black drop effect happens when the planet that's passing in front (let's call it "planet A") gets so close to the planet being passed in front of (let's call that one "planet B") that it looks like they're almost touching. But because of some weird things that happen with light, it looks like there's a little black drop connecting them.
It's kind of like trying to draw that line with the fat crayon - the light from planet A gets all spread out and makes that little black "drop" between the two planets. Scientists are still figuring out exactly why this happens, but it's a cool thing to study!