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Articles: Skywatchers await total eclipse

Posted by admin on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 07:41 AM

Skywatchers across the globe are preparing to watch a total eclipse of the Sun on Wednesday.

Find out more about the route of the eclipse across the Earth

An area spanning 14,500km (9,000 miles), from Ghana to Mongolia, will see the Moon completely cover the Sun for several minutes on 29 March. During the "totality", darkness will fall over the surrounding landscape and the solar atmosphere - or corona, normally hidden from view - is visible. Some countries have gone to great lengths to attract eclipse watchers. "Solar eclipses are the ultimate astronomical show," said Dr Robert Massey, senior astronomer at the UK's Royal Observatory Greenwich. "It's up there with the highest-rated television programme. If there is one thing you do to do with astronomy in your lifetime, go and see a solar eclipse.

I think it's such a special event that you can't help but be moved by it

Robert Massey, Royal Observatory Greenwich

"Day turns into night. Suddenly, in place of this brilliant Sun, you have something like a flower opening. You see the corona - the outer atmosphere of the Sun - radiating behind the dark silhouette of the Moon. "It's indescribable - utterly beautiful. I think it's such a special event that you can't help but be moved by it," he told the BBC News website. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon completely covers the face of the Sun as seen from the Earth's surface. The track of the Moon's shadow across Earth is called the "path of totality". Skywatchers have been warned against looking directly at the partially eclipsed phases of the event. Sunrise and sunset This path of totality will traverse parts of West and North Africa, Turkey, and Central Asia. It starts at sunrise on the edge of Brazil, crosses the Atlantic in the morning, the Sahara at midday, Turkey in the afternoon, and ends at sunset in Central Asia. The Moon's umbral shadow touches down on Earth in eastern Brazil at 0836 GMT (0936 BST). The point of greatest eclipse will occur in southern Libya at 1011 GMT (1111 BST). The shadow lifts off the Earth at 1148 GMT (1248 BST) along Mongolia's northern border.

The total eclipse will be visible over a wide area

The eclipse will be partial across a much wider region, including most of Africa, all of Europe, and much of western and southern Asia. In the UK, it will be possible to observe the Sun between 10 and 20% eclipsed between 1045 BST and 1225 BST. Amateur and professional astronomers have been flooding into Libya, where the eclipse will be visible for about seven minutes. The North African country has been granting thousands of normally hard-to-come-by tourist visas to Western visitors - except Israelis. The Libyan government has been erecting desert tent villages which it claims have a total capacity for 7,000 people in order to accommodate the tourists. Eyesight risk Tens of thousands of tourists were expected along the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Astronomers from the US space agency (Nasa) and Britain's Royal Institute of Astronomy will watch the eclipse from a Roman amphitheatre in Turkey. "Eclipses are such rare and spectacular events that people are prepared to travel long distances to see them. I know of one tour alone that has 1,200 people booked," said Dr Massey. Nigeria has stepped up a campaign to stop superstitious interpretations of Wednesday's eclipse. The authorities fear a repeat of Muslim riots in 2001, when a lunar eclipse prompted attacks on Christian targets. The next total solar eclipse will be on 1 August, 2008, over a track stretching across North America, Europe and Asia. The path of totality will swing across Greenland, Siberia, Mongolia and China. The UK's chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson warned that children risk severely damaging their eyesight and even blindness if they look directly at the Sun during the partial eclipse visible in the UK. The warning has been re-iterated by other governments. Viewing the Sun's harsh light should only be done through protective equipment - proper solar glasses or through a pinhole projection system. Over the past 25 years there have been 16 total solar eclipses, a rough average of one every 18 months. The last total eclipse took place on November 23, 2003, but was visible only from a part of Antarctica.

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