For one minute to over four minutes, darkness will be experienced in some parts of Southeast Asia on March 9 local time (March 8 EST), depends on what region you are, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Total solar eclipse happens when the moon, precisely aligned in its orbit passage between the sun and earth, envelopes the light coming from the sun. The result would be the corona, which NASA reports is “a tenuous and comparatively faint solar atmosphere.”
“The moon blocks the light of the sun’s surface very, very precisely,” said Sarah Jaeggli, space scientist stationed at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “You can see all the way down to the roots of the corona, where the atmosphere meets the sun’s surface.”
Once the eclipse has reached its fullness, Jaeggli said “the surroundings will take on a twilight case, even though it’s daytime and the sky is still blue.”
Daytime darkness will be experienced in some parts of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, and in locations not populated by humans, according to the NASA map. Meanwhile, Hawaii, Guam and select parts of Alaska will have partial total eclipse, the experience lasting for more than an hour before or after the total eclipse.
The whole total solar eclipse process will take around three hours, starting from the westernmost location where the eclipse will begin, to the easternmost location where the eclipse will end. But each location privileged of the daytime darkness will enjoy the experience at approximately one and a half minutes. It commences in the Indian Ocean, then west of India, leads eastward across Indian and Pacific Oceans, and wraps up west of North America at sunset. Partial eclipse will occur in Hawaii and Alaska afternoon of March 8 EST. Morning of March 9, the spectacle will happen at the south and eastern Asia, Korea, Japan, north and western Australia.
Total solar eclipse gives the viewers the perception that the sun, moon and earth are of same sizes although the sun is 400 times larger than the moon. The sun is also 400 times afar from the earth. This accurate geometrical positioning gives the illusion of the three heavenly bodies having the same dimension in the sky, though in truth, the moon is just blocking the entire sun’s face.
The March 8 or 9 eclipse is one of the five eclipses scheduled to occur this year. Penumbral lunar eclipse will follow in March 23, annular solar eclipse in September 1, and another penumbral lunar eclipse in September 23.