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Africa awaits rare encore solar eclipse
By Richard Stenger
(CNN) -- Hundreds of thousands of eclipse chasers, space scientists and Southern Hemisphere inhabitants expect to see the daytime sky go dark Wednesday as the moon blots out the sun over Africa for the second time in 18 months. The total eclipse will be seen for more than two minutes in some places, creating the brief illusion of night that sometimes persuades birds to roost, can make stars appear to twinkle and causes the sun's usually hidden coronal ring to shine. The lunar shadow will appear shortly after dawn over the Atlantic Ocean, race eastward over southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, then terminate at sunset over southern Australia. It will travel about 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) during an odyssey lasting three hours and 21 minutes. The first land to witness it will be the African coast of Angola shortly before 6 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time (1 a.m. EST). "The local residents are indeed fortunate to witness a total eclipse twice within the span of 18 months," said eclipse expert Fred Espenak in a statement on NASA's eclipse Web site. "Quite coincidentally, the first tract of Angolan land to experience totality was also within the path of the total solar eclipse of 2001, June 21," Espenak said.
The odds of such a coincidence are quite low. Total solar eclipses occur about once every 18 months. But the same geographic location waits on average some 375 years between such eclipse events. Despite the rare luck for African observers, there is a catch. The June 2001 episode took place over central Africa during the dry season, but this week's eclipse over southern Africa coincides with the regional rainy season. Drier weather and clearer skies are predicted for Australia, but it will witness a much briefer eclipse. And it takes place shortly before sunset when horizon clouds could spoil the view. Southern African countries prepared for throngs of eclipse chasers. In South Africa, one-third of Kruger National Park will fall underneath the eclipse path, and the park expects many visitors. In Mozambique, the government has declared Wednesday a national holiday so people can see the eclipse, which will skim across a southern section of the country. A much broader swatch of the Earth will witness a partial eclipse, with the moon blocking only a fraction of the sun's disk, including most of Africa, western Australia and Antarctica.
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