2023-10-10 23:29:18
Tens of millions of Americans will have front-row seats to the Sun’s unusual “ring of fire” eclipse.
The so-called annular solar eclipse will briefly darken the skies over the western United States and Central and South America.
When the Moon aligns precisely between the Earth and the Sun, it will erase everything except the outer edge of the Sun.
A bright, glowing rim will appear around the Moon for five minutes, wowing skywatchers along a narrow path stretching from Oregon to Brazil.
The celestial spectacle will cause a partial eclipse in the rest of the Western Hemisphere.
It is the prelude to the total solar eclipse that can be seen from Mexico, the eastern half of the United States and Canada within six months.
Unlike Saturday, when the Moon is too far from Earth to completely cover the Sun from our perspective, the Moon will be at the perfect distance on April 8, 2024.
The eclipse will form a strip about 210 kilometers wide, starting in the northern Pacific and entering the United States through Oregon around 8:00 a.m. (Pacific time) on Saturday.
It will culminate in the ring of fire just over an hour later.
From Oregon, the eclipse will head down through Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Texas, spanning swaths of Idaho, California, Arizona and Colorado, before exiting into the Gulf of Mexico in Corpus Christi.
The flaming halo will take less than an hour to cross the United States.
In the United States alone, more than 6.5 million people live along the so-called annularity path, and another 68 million within a 200-mile radius, according to NASA planetary scientist Alex Lockwood.
“So a few hours by car and you can have more than 70 million witnesses of this incredible celestial alignment,” he said.
Make sure you use safe, certified solar eclipse glasses, Lockwood said. Sunglasses are not enough to prevent eye damage.
Adequate protection is necessary throughout the eclipse, from the initial partial phase to the ring of fire and the final partial phase.
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