Representative image. Photo: Reuters/P. Ravikumar
Singapore: Thousands of skywatchers gathered across parts of the Middle East and Asia on Thursday to glimpse the sun forming a ring of fire around the moon in a rare annular solar eclipse .
An annular eclipse occurs when the moon covers the sun’s centre but leaves its outer edges visible to form a ring.
Thursday’s was visible in Saudi Arabia as well as Singapore, India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.
“This will be the first of only two annular eclipse s visible from Singapore for the rest of the century. So in that sense, it’s a very rare event for us,” said Albert Ho, president of the Astronomical Society of Singapore. The island’s next will be in 2063.
In most years, two solar eclipse s are visible from somewhere on Earth. The maximum number is five.
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