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General Information |
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Annular Solar Eclipse:
February 7, 2008
Geographic Region:
Antarctica, eastern
Australia, New Zealand
[Annular: Antarctica]
The first solar eclipse of
2008 occurs at the Moon's
ascending node in
Capricornus. An annular
eclipse will be visible from
a wide track, that traverses
Antarctica and southern
regions of the Pacific
Ocean. A partial eclipse
will be seen within the much
larger path of the Moon's
penumbral shadow, which
includes the southeastern
third of Australia, all of
New Zealand and most of
Antarctica.
The annular path begins in
Antarctica at 03:20 UT when
the Moon's antumbral shadow
meets Earth and forms a 581
kilometre wide corridor near
the base of the continent's
peninsula region. Traveling
westward, the shadow quickly
crosses Antarctica and turns
north as it heads into the
Pacific. Greatest eclipse
takes place at 03:55:05 UT
when the eclipse magnitude
will reach 0.9650. At this
instant, the annular
duration is 2 minutes 12
seconds, the path width is
444 kilometres and the Sun
is 16° above the featureless
horizon of the open ocean.
The central track continues
north before gradually
curving to the east where it
ends at local sunset at
04:31 UT. During its 1 hour
10 minute flight across our
planet, the Moon's antumbra
travels approximately 5,600
kilometres and covers 0.59%
of Earth's surface area.
The most unusual
characteristic of this
eclipse is that it begins
and ends along Earth's
sunset terminator. Most
eclipse paths that travel
from west to east. However,
the 2008 annular eclipse
path begins by running east
to west and slowly turns
north before curving west to
east near its terminus.
This is the 60th
eclipse of Saros 121. The
series began with the first
of six partial eclipses on
0944 Apr 25. The first
central eclipse was total in
the Northern Hemisphere on
1070 Jul 10. It was followed
by 41 more total eclipses
before the series produce
two hybrid eclipses in 1827
and 1845. The first annular
eclipse of the series
occurred on 1863 Nov 11. The
series will produce 11
annular eclipses the last of
which is 2044 Feb 28. This
means there are only two
more central eclipses after
the 2008 eclipse. The series
terminates on 2206 Jun 07
after 9 more partial
eclipses.
Eclipse map and predictions
courtesy of Fred Espenak -
NASA/Goddard Space Flight
Center.
For more information on
solar and lunar eclipses,
see Fred Espenak's Eclipse
Home Page:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html
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