The annular solar eclipse, the first in the year, will be visible across the world on 26th January beginning from southern parts of Africa, Antarctica, South East Asia and Australia.
The Solar Eclipse will begin at 10.26 am and ends at 4.30 pm on Monday passing through various stages. At its greatest phase, the eclipse will be 92.9 per cent and last for 7.51 minutes.
According to N Sriraghunandan Kumar Secretary Planetary Society, India, the annular eclipse occurs when the sun and moon are exactly inline but the apparent size of the moon is smaller than that of the sun. Hence the sun appears as a very bright ring or annulus surrounding the outline of the Moon, he said.
On Monday, as India is celebrating its Republic day some parts of the country will be witnessing partial phase of annular solar eclipse, the first in the year.
The first city that would begin to witness the Solar eclipse is Kanyakumari at 2.08 pm and the last city is Port Blair to witness the solar eclipse at 2.17 pm and will continue to witness till its end at 4.25 pm.
In the country, the solar eclipse will be partially visible in southern India, all places in eastern coast of India, most of North East India Andaman Nicobar and Lakshwadeep islands.
The maximum eclipse will be seen at Port Blair where it will be 39.4 per cent at greatest phase of the eclipse. In other parts of the country, the visibility ranges from 2.2 per cent in Hyderabad to 21.4 per cent within the country barring Port Blair.
In other parts of the world, the eclipse is visible in southern part of Africa, South East Asia and Australia.
During the eclipse, moon is in the apogee (farthest point from earth)hence the entire disc of sun is not being covered which otherwise at perigee will cover the entire sun’s disc. On 22nd July this year, there is a total solar eclipse when moon is at perigee.
Sun’s distance from earth is about 400 times more than the moon distance, and the sun’s diametre is about 400 times the moon’s diameter. Because of this ratio, the sizes of sun and moon appear to be same when seen from earth, however, their orbits being ellipse (oval shape) becomes detrimental in making the eclipse to be total or annular.
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