Post by auntym on May 20, 2012 11:15:44 GMT -6
Solar Eclipse 2012: How to See "Ring of Fire" Today
Annular eclipse to be visible from Asia, U.S. West.
An annular solar eclipse creates a "ring of fire" in the skies over China (file picture).
Photograph from ChinaFotoPress, Getty Images
Andrew Fazekas
for National Geographic News
Updated May 20, 2012
This weekend, a "time traveling" solar eclipse will turn the familiar disk of the sun into a ring of fire for sky-watchers in parts of Asia and the U.S. West.
Known as an annular eclipse, the event is the first of its kind to be visible from the mainland United States since 1994. The region won't see another such eclipse until 2023.
CLICK LINK TO: Watch a live feed of the May 20-21 annular eclipse.
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120520-solar-eclipse-2012-ring-of-fire-annular-sun-science-how-see-where/?source=link_tw20120520news-solareclipse
Like a total solar eclipse, an annular eclipse happens when the moon lines up between Earth and the sun. But in this case, the dark moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the visible disk of the sun, leaving a ring—or annulus—of fiery light around the edges. (See annular eclipse pictures.)
During such an eclipse, "the path of annularity, where the full eclipse will be visible, is hundreds of miles wide and thousands of miles long," said eclipse expert Jay Pasachoff, the Field Memorial Professor at Williams College in Massachusetts.
In this path, "viewers looking through special solar filters can see a ring of sunlight around the black silhouette of the moon," said Pasachoff, who is also a National Geographic Society grantee. (National Geographic News is a division of the Society.)
The annular eclipse starts in China at local sunrise on May 21. The path of the moon's shadow then goes over Japan around 7:35 a.m., local time, and races across the Pacific Ocean.
(Also see "Eclipses in Ancient China Spurred Science, Beheadings?")
Due to the time zone change, the eclipse makes landfall again in North America in the late afternoon of May 20, starting at the California-Oregon border at 6:26 p.m. PT.
The annular eclipse then crosses southern Nevada, southern Utah, the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, the lower-left corner of Colorado, and most of New Mexico before ending in the area of Lubbock, Texas, around sunset at 8:36 p.m. CT.
For most viewers in the path of annularity, the eclipse will last for a just over four and half minutes.
CONTINUE READING: news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120520-solar-eclipse-2012-ring-of-fire-annular-sun-science-how-see-where/?source=link_tw20120520news-solareclipse
Annular eclipse to be visible from Asia, U.S. West.
An annular solar eclipse creates a "ring of fire" in the skies over China (file picture).
Photograph from ChinaFotoPress, Getty Images
Andrew Fazekas
for National Geographic News
Updated May 20, 2012
This weekend, a "time traveling" solar eclipse will turn the familiar disk of the sun into a ring of fire for sky-watchers in parts of Asia and the U.S. West.
Known as an annular eclipse, the event is the first of its kind to be visible from the mainland United States since 1994. The region won't see another such eclipse until 2023.
CLICK LINK TO: Watch a live feed of the May 20-21 annular eclipse.
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120520-solar-eclipse-2012-ring-of-fire-annular-sun-science-how-see-where/?source=link_tw20120520news-solareclipse
Like a total solar eclipse, an annular eclipse happens when the moon lines up between Earth and the sun. But in this case, the dark moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the visible disk of the sun, leaving a ring—or annulus—of fiery light around the edges. (See annular eclipse pictures.)
During such an eclipse, "the path of annularity, where the full eclipse will be visible, is hundreds of miles wide and thousands of miles long," said eclipse expert Jay Pasachoff, the Field Memorial Professor at Williams College in Massachusetts.
In this path, "viewers looking through special solar filters can see a ring of sunlight around the black silhouette of the moon," said Pasachoff, who is also a National Geographic Society grantee. (National Geographic News is a division of the Society.)
The annular eclipse starts in China at local sunrise on May 21. The path of the moon's shadow then goes over Japan around 7:35 a.m., local time, and races across the Pacific Ocean.
(Also see "Eclipses in Ancient China Spurred Science, Beheadings?")
Due to the time zone change, the eclipse makes landfall again in North America in the late afternoon of May 20, starting at the California-Oregon border at 6:26 p.m. PT.
The annular eclipse then crosses southern Nevada, southern Utah, the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, the lower-left corner of Colorado, and most of New Mexico before ending in the area of Lubbock, Texas, around sunset at 8:36 p.m. CT.
For most viewers in the path of annularity, the eclipse will last for a just over four and half minutes.
CONTINUE READING: news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120520-solar-eclipse-2012-ring-of-fire-annular-sun-science-how-see-where/?source=link_tw20120520news-solareclipse