A rare "annular" solar
eclipse will trek across Western states on Sunday, astronomers report, which is
the latest occurrence in a busy year for heavenly events.
Crossing from Oregon to Texas, the eclipse will darken the center of the sun's disk for 4½ minutes but leave its bright rim visible, a less-than-total eclipse that will still cast the moon's shadow over a roughly 150-mile wide path.
Crossing from Oregon to Texas, the eclipse will darken the center of the sun's disk for 4½ minutes but leave its bright rim visible, a less-than-total eclipse that will still cast the moon's shadow over a roughly 150-mile wide path.
The last annular eclipse was in
1994, and the next one will be in 2030, part of an 18-year cycle. The full
eclipse starts in Medford, Ore., at 6:26 p.m. PT, and ends in Lubbock, Texas,
at 8:40 p.m. CT. A partial eclipse will be viewable everywhere from San
Francisco to Buffalo.
This deepest solar eclipse in
decades will blot out most of the sun over Stockton, at a time when the sun
will be slowly sinking in the western sky. Stockton is about 200 miles south of
the narrow ribbon of Southern Oregon and Northern California from which the
moon will obscure all but the sun's outer "ring of fire."
