The moon will certainly pass in front of the sunlight on April 8 to produce a complete solar eclipse, the very first because 2017 to strike the reduced 48 U.S. states. While the following such eclipse to go across Canada and the U.S. won’t happen up until 2044, TIME has actually assembled noteworthy representations of eclipses in books, TV shows, and movies to assist load the moment up until after that, politeness of Lisa Yaszek, a Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech.

Eclipses appear to show up in tales when there’s a significant adjustment of occasions in the story and in minutes of “dangerous and negative change, of chaos and confusion,” Yaszek claims. Below are 8 instances of eclipses in popular culture.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

Yaszek calls Twain the very first individual that utilized a solar eclipse properly in a job of contemporary sci-fi. In the tale, a 19th century designer called Hank Morgan obtains knocked senseless and gets up in middle ages Europe, and utilizes his expertise of solar eclipses to get power over Merlin and every person else in King Arthur’s court. One summary of an eclipse reviews, “It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I struggled with those awkward sixth-century clothes. It got to be pitch dark, at last, and the multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold uncanny night breezes fan through the place and see the stars come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the eclipse was total.”

“Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov

This narrative has to do with a team of researchers that have really psychological responses to an eclipse. As Yaszek places it, ”It’s a truly effective tale concerning both just how researchers can obtain it incorrect, however additionally just how researchers have sensations and just how all of us have sensations and just how relocated we are by these large occasions around us.” One assumption of what will certainly happen after an eclipse, from a psycho therapist: “’’First the eclipse — which will start in three quarters of an hour — then universal Darkness and, maybe, these mysterious Stars — then madness, and end of the cycle.’”

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

This publication, which was lately adjusted for a Netflix collection, practically includes a syzygy, which occurs when the sunlight, moon and planet are in near a straight line throughout a solar or lunar eclipse. In the 2008 book, eclipses are viewed as damaging. Aliens are seeking to get into Earth since their world has actually ended up being unpredictable and unliveable as a result of numerous eclipses. As Yaszek explains just how this scientific research term is utilized in the unique, “It reminds us of the awe and the terror of eclipses. We tend to associate eclipses with changes in luck, fortune, and history, and The Three-Body Problem is an amazing dramatization of that.”

The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon

In this approximately 10-minute 1907 brief movie, the supervisor Georges Méliés plays an astronomer talking a course of young astronomers concerning an approaching eclipse. When the moment has actually come, he peers with a gigantic telescope to enjoy an eclipse and sees the moon and the sunlight both have human faces and are winking at each other and sticking their tongues out, seductively, as the moon makes its method to the sunlight. When the moon covers the sunlight, the ramification is that they’re having some kind of sex-related experience. According to the Princeton University Art Museum, Méliés is taken into consideration a “father of the science fiction genre in film.”

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 traditional starts with an eclipse, the Earth, Moon, and the sunlight in positioning. The Moon progressively relocates in the direction of all-time low of the display, exposing the complete sunlight in an orange radiance. It’s not a sight from Earth, however from elsewhere in the planetary system. Then the flick segues to “the dawn of man.” To Yaszek, opening up the flick with an eclipse stands for just how they “get used to mark these sorts of changes in history and in moments.”

Pitch Black

David Twohy’s 2000 movie is established on a remote world where a spacecraft has actually collapsed, eliminating most of the travelers. A detainee played by Vin Diesel ends up being actually valuable throughout a solar eclipse since he can see flawlessly in complete darkness. When an eclipse takes place, and disorder emerges throughout the minute of darkness, the detainee leads the initiative to obtain points in control. Amid the darkness, an English classical times dealership discovers his stockpile of great a glass of wine can be utilized as illumination gas.

The Simpsons: “Marge vs. the Monorail” and “Gone Maggie Gone”

In the traditional episode “Marge vs. the Monorail,” an eclipse takes place while the solar-paneled monorail is speeding up out of control. The monorail pauses, and when the eclipse passes and the sunlight appears, the monorail returns to speeding up out of control. In “Gone Maggie Gone,” the Simpsons family members is taking a look at an eclipse in Springfield with devices constructed of footwear boxes and a bathroom tissue roll. Marge checks out the eclipse without glasses and after that needs to put on a plaster over them for 2 weeks. An information support jokes “a total eclipse is like a woman breastfeeding in a restaurant, it’s free. It’s beautiful. But under no circumstances should you look at it.”