Solar Eclipse turns the sky Dark on Sun

The country witnessed its 'deepest' ring-shaped 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 India and the world. This type of solar eclipse is popularly known as ‘ring of fire.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon, earth and sun come in a straight line, with the moon between the earth and the sun. Close to noon, for a small belt in north India the eclipse will turn into a beautiful annular one since the Moon is not close enough to cover the Sun completely.  However, unlike a full solar eclipse when the sun is entirely covered by the moon for a brief period, during the annular eclipse, the angular diameter of the moon falls short of that of the sun and it fails to cover up the latter completely. As a result a ring of the sun’s disk remains visible around the moon.