William Atkins
Friday, 15 January 2010 23:07
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
January 15, 2010 goes down in astronomy history as the day the longest annular eclipse will occur in the third millennium. The solar eclipse was seen in much of central Africa, Maldives, southern India, northern Sri Lanka, and parts of Myanmar and China.
The annular eclipse time lasted 11 minutes, 7.8 seconds along a Earth-surface length of roughly 8,000 miles (12,900 kilometers) and a width of approximately 185 miles (300 kilometers).
It plunged millions of people—who were located within this long, narrow strip in Central Africa, Maldives, South Kerala and South Tamil Nadu in India, northern part of Sri Lanka, and parts of Myanmar (formerly Burma) and China—into a semi-darkening sky
According to astronomers, this annular solar eclipse is the longest one of the millennium--that is, the current period of 1,000 years we are currently in, going from 2001 to 3,000; or the third millennium.
A longer one will occur on December 23, 3043, in the fourth millennium. Can’t wait to see that one!
Back in the second millennium (from 1001 to 2000), an annular solar eclipse happened on January 4, 1992.
This 2nd millennium one was longer than this 3rd millennium one, coming in at 11 minutes, 41 seconds and occurring along a narrow strip in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Page two continues with additional information, along with websites to view this annular solar eclipse.
