South and central Africa will be treated to a spectacular solar eclipse Thursday, 1 September, when the moon wanders into view to make the sun appear as a “ring of fire”, astronomers say. The phenomenon, known as an annular solar eclipse, happens when there is a near-perfect alignment of the Earth, moon and sun.
But unlike a total eclipse, when the sun is blacked out, sometimes the moon is too far from Earth, and its apparent diameter too small, for complete coverage.
“At the eclipse’s peak, all that will be visible is a ring of light encircling the black disk that is the moon,” said astronomer Pascal Descamps of the Paris Observatory, in the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion to witness the event. “That will be the magic moment,” he told AFP.
South Africans will be able to witness the eclipse, but not the entire ‘ring of fire’ effect. Only people along a very narrow, 100km band stretching across central Africa, Madagascar and Reunion will see the full effect of the ring, or annulus.
In Kenya, Nairobi, a partial solar eclipse lasting almost four hours will be seen in Nairobi today and it will last from 10am until 1.38pm and will be strongest at 11.47am, astronomers say.
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The partial annular eclipse will be visible within a radius of 270km from Nairobi. An annular eclipse covers part of the sun and only happens when there is a new moon, or when the moon is at or near its lunar node. It can also occur when the sun, moon and earth are perfectly aligned in a straight line or when the moon is farthest from the sun.
The eclipse started around Universal time 2:30 am and it will pass over the countries of Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, and then hop over to the island nation of Madagascar.
The longest eclipse will occur in Kenya, from 10:00 am to 1:38 Pm and the strongest expected around Nairobi.