Global Courant 2023-04-20 10:16:43
The remote town of Exmouth plunges into darkness for 58 seconds in the kind of solar eclipse that only happens once every ten years.
Some 20,000 people gathered under cloudless skies in the northwestern Australian coastal town of Exmouth to enjoy a rare total solar eclipse that plunged the region into darkness for 58 seconds as the moon blocked the sun.
The remote town of less than 3,000 people was one of the best vantage points in Australia to see the solar eclipse that also passed through Indonesia and East Timor.
An international crowd had been gathering in Exmouth for days, camping in tents and caravans on a red, dusty plain on the outskirts of town with cameras and other viewing devices aimed at the sky.
“A lot of people get hooked on that minute or so of eerie otherworldliness,” said John Lattanzio of the Astronomical Society of Australia.
“They become ‘eclipse hunters’ and they travel all over the world for repeat experiences.”
Totality occurred at 11:29:48 local time (03:29:48 GMT) on Thursday and brought darkness and a spectral calm, according to those who were there.
Less than a minute later, the dusty outback was bathed in light again.
The partial solar eclipse was partially obscured by clouds in Jakarta (Tatan Syuflana/AP Photo}
NASA astronomer Henry Throop was among those in attendance at Exmouth, loudly cheering the eclipse into the darkness.
“Isn’t it incredible? This is so fantastic. It was breathtaking. It was so sharp and it was so bright. You could see the corona around the sun there,” the visibly excited Washington, D.C. resident told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
People in West Papua and East Timor also witnessed the total solar eclipse.
In the Indonesian capital, hundreds of people flocked to the Jakarta Planetarium to view the partial solar eclipse, which was obscured by clouds.
Azka Azzahra, 21, came with her sister and friends to take a closer look using the planetarium’s telescopes.
“I’m still happy to come, even if it’s cloudy. It’s happy to see people coming here with great enthusiasm to see the eclipse because it’s rare,” Azzahra said.
The call to prayer echoed from the city’s mosques as the eclipse phase began as Muslims recited eclipse prayers as a reminder of God’s greatness.
People in Jakarta take turns using a telescope to view the partial solar eclipse, which crossed Indonesia, East Timor and remote northwestern Australia (Tatan Syuflana/AP Photo)
The hybrid eclipse occurred largely over water as it moved from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The few people in its path saw either the darkness of a total solar eclipse or a “ring of fire” as the sun peeked behind the new moon.
The eclipse also gave scientists a chance to observe the sun’s corona, which is mostly obscured by the bright rays.
Witnessing a similar solar eclipse once helped Albert Einstein hypothesize that light can bend.
Such events occur about once every ten years: the last was in 2013, and the next will not be until 2031.
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