Doomsday shakeup! Did the eclipse have anything to do with the earthquake?
The end isn’t nigh — but weirdness could still be in the stars.
The 4.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the New York area Friday is unrelated to Monday’s upcoming solar eclipse — but the celestial spectacle has long been considered an Earth-rocking harbinger of bad things, according to geologists and historians.
Follow The Post’s coverage on the NYC and tri-state earthquake
Despite the doomsday outcry on social media, Paul Earl of the United States Geological Survey said the wild events weren’t connected.
“With earthquakes of this size there’s no correlation to celestial bodies,” Earl said Friday. “[It’s] unrelated to the solar eclipse.”
He added, “Our scientists are hard at work now attempting to understand this earthquake better.”
Social media exploded Friday with comments about the timing of jaw-dropping natural events.
“For a lot of human history, an earthquake followed a few days later by a total eclipse would be taken as a pretty good sign of the end of times,” tweeted New York Politico contributor Bill Mahoney.
Conspiracy-peddling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) seemed to take the connection more seriously as she declared the temblor/eclipse combo to be a sign that the big man upstairs is angry.
“God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” she tweeted.“Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”
Everything to know about the 2024 solar eclipse
- The solar eclipse will take place Monday, April 8, blocking the sun for over 180 million people in its path.
- The eclipse will expand from Mexico’s Pacific Coast across North America, hitting 15 US states and pulling itself all the way to the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
- New Yorkers will experience the solar eclipse just after 2 p.m. Monday.
- A huge explosion on the sun, known as a coronal mass ejection, is anticipated, according to experts. This happens when massive particles from the sun are hurled out into space, explains Ryan French of the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado.
- To avoid serious injury to the eyes, it is necessary to view the event through proper eyewear like eclipse glasses, or a handheld solar viewer, during the partial eclipse phase before and after totality.
- The next total solar eclipse will take place on Aug. 12, 2026, and totality will be visible to those in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and a small slice of Portugal.
Despite the unfounded connection between the events, the eclipse will dramatically impact the natural world — jolting plants, animals and ocean tides.
As the moon blankets the sun, birds will flock and farm animals such as cows and chickens will run into barns thinking it’s night, according to research.
They’ll react during the lead-up to totality as the light begins to dim, Angela Speck, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told ABC News. “Once it gets to about 75%, 80% eclipsed, there’s enough sunlight missing that animals will start to react,” she said.
Meanwhile, the combined gravitational pull of the sun and moon will cause high tides in the path of totality, researchers say.
Throughout history, the cosmic event has also been considered a sign of disapproval from the Gods — leading to halted wars and the downfall of world leaders, according to historians.
A solar eclipse, for example, was thought to have led to the tragic death of King Henry I in 1135, according to Time magazine.
In 585 B.C., the Lydians and the Medes even ended a war because they took the celestial event to be a sign of disapproval from the heavens.
The solar eclipse will be visible in New York City on Monday between roughly 2:10 and 4:30 p.m.
