Solar Eclipse on January 15, 2010
Posted in Astronomy/Space, General Events, Headlines, Science on January 14th, 2010 by Michael Aldridge – Be the first to comment
There will be a Solar Eclipse on January 15, 2010, Friday. A cool sensation will descend over some parts of the world on Friday afternoon with a solar eclipse said to be the longest of its kind in the next 1,000 years.
The solar eclipse of January 15, 2010 is an annular eclipse of the Sun with a magnitude of 0.9190.
It will be visible as a partial eclipse in much of Africa, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia. It will be seen as annular within a narrow stretch of 300 km (190 mi) width across Central Africa, Maldives, South Kerala (India), South Tamil Nadu(India), North Sri Lanka, parts of Burma and parts of China.
The eclipse starts at Uganda, passes through Nairobi, enters Indian ocean where the greatest eclipse is taking place in mid of Ocean for a maximum of 11 Mins and 7.7 seconds.
After that enters Maldives, where it would be the longest on land with 10.8 Min of viewing. This makes the tiny islands of Maldives the best spot for viewing this eclipse from land. The annular Eclipse at Male’, the capital city of Maldives starts at 12:20:20 hrs and ends 12:30:06 hrs Maldives local time (GMT+5hrs). This is also the longest duration of any city having an international airport in the eclipse track.
Friday’s eclipse is an annular one – the moon will pass in front of the sun, but will not block it completely, as in a total eclipse. Instead, there will be a ring of fire, or a solar ring, visible around the edge of the darkened moon.