Ring Eclipse to Occur May 20th

At sunrise in some parts of China and Japan and by sunset in the western United States, an annular eclipse in which the moon blocks out all but a ring of the Sun's light, will travel a narrow swath of the Earth on May 20 and 21. Some regions will see the Sun as a crescent, partially obscured by the moon, for a period of around four to five minutes.

The event will be the first time in 18 years that such an eclipse is visible from the continental United States, according to Fred Espenak, a longtime solar eclipse expert with NASA."What is unusual about this particular annular eclipse is that it goes over the western US," Espenak told AFP.

"People always think that eclipses are extremely rare but there are at least two solar eclipses every year. Each of these annular eclipses covers a very small fraction of the Earth's surface."The path of the annular eclipse will span "a 240 to 300 kilometer-wide (150-185 mile) track that traverses eastern Asia, the northern Pacific Ocean and the western United States," according to the US space agency.

The eclipse begins at sunrise in southern China at 2206 GMT Sunday, which is early Monday local time, and swiftly travels eastward to the southern coast of Japan, NASA said. "Tokyo lies 10 kilometers (six miles) north of the central line. For the over 10 million residents within the metropolitan area, the annular phase will last five minutes beginning at 2232 GMT," said NASA.

On May 20, the eclipse embarks on a 7,000-kilometer-long Pacific ocean voyage that will last for about two hours, skimming just south of Alaska's Aleutian Islands. The eclipse will reach the coastlines of southern Oregon and northern California Sunday evening local time, at 0123 GMT Monday, and it should be visible in Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas

The US East Coast will not see any of the eclipse because the Sun will have already set."The desert areas of Nevada, southern Utah and northern Arizona may be the best (for viewing) if they have the greatest chance of clear skies and the eclipse takes place low in the sky over a dramatic landscape," said Alan MacRobert, editor of Sky and Telescope magazine.

More information: Further details: http://eclipse.gsf … ASE2012.htmlhttp://www.skypub.may20eclipse

The Daily Galaxy via AFP