The country is witnessing its ‘deepest’ annular solar eclipse of this century, with the Sun appearing as a necklace of pearls for around 30 seconds during the maximum phase along a narrow corridor running through Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttarakhand.
When the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth are aligned in a straight line or an almost straight configuration, such that the Moon comes between the Sun and Earth blocking the rays of Sun from directly reaching the Earth, we witness a solar eclipse. Based on the alignment, there are three kinds of solar eclipses — total, partial, and annular — along with the addition of a rare hybrid of an annular and a total solar eclipse.
The solar eclipse today is an annular eclipse where the Moon is so far from Earth that its relative size fails to cover the Sun completely and leaves the outer rims visible, thus creating a ring of fire in the sky.
Today the annual solar eclipse will start at 9:15 AM IST and will be visible until 3:04 PM IST. The maximum eclipse will take place at 12:10 IST. The eclipse will be visible from much of Asia, Africa, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, parts of Europe and Australia.
As per Nepal's BP Koirala Memorial, Planetarium Observatory and Science Museum Development Board the solar eclipse will be visible from 10:52 am to 2:32 pm today.
The solar eclipse, which began at 8:46 am local time, will end at 2:34 pm with the greatest eclipse occurring at 11:40 am.