Rare ‘ring of fire’ solar eclipse to dim Africa and Asia

Skywatchers along a narrow band from west Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, India and southern China will witness today the most dramatic “ring of fire” solar eclipse to shadow the Earth in years.

Annular eclipses occur when the Moon – passing between Earth and the Sun – is not quite close enough to our planet to completely obscure sunlight, leaving a thin ring of the solar disc visible.

They occur every year or two, and can only been seen from a narrow pathway across the planet.

Remarkably, the eclipse today arrives on the northern hemisphere’s longest day of the year – the summer solstice – when Earth’s north pole is tilted most directly towards the Sun.

The “ring of fire” will first be seen in northeastern Republic of Congo at 5.56am local time just a few minutes after sunrise.

This is the point of maximum duration, with the blackout lasting one minute and 22 seconds.

Arcing eastward across Asia and Africa, it will reach “maximum eclipse” – with a perfect solar halo around the Moon – over Uttarakhand, India near the Sino-Indian border at 12.10pm local time.

More spectacular, but less longlived: the exact alignment of the Earth, Moon and Sun will be visible for only 38 seconds.

“The annular eclipse is visible from about 2% of Earth’s surface,” Florent Delefie, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory, said.

“It’s a bit like switching from a 500-watt to a 30-watt light bulb,” he added. “It’s a cold light, and you don’t see as well.”

Animals can get spooked – birds will sometimes go back to sleep, and cows will return to the barn.

The full eclipse will be visible somewhere on Earth during just under four hours, and one of the last places to see a partially hidden Sun is Taiwan before its path heads out into the Pacific.

People hundreds of kilometres on either side of the centreline across 14 countries will also see light drain, but not the “ring of fire”.

Weather conditions are critical for viewing.

“Good weather is the key to successful eclipse viewing,” astrophysicist Fred Espenak, an expert on eclipse prediction, commented on the Nasa Eclipse website. A solar eclipse always occurs about two weeks before or after a lunar eclipse, when the Moon moves into Earth’s shadow.

The annular phase of this ‘ring of fire’ eclipse is not visible in Malaysia, but it can be observed here as a partial solar eclipse.