Once-in-a-millennium solar spectacle today

Astronomy buffs in China will enjoy fine weather conditions for observing a rare annular solar eclipse across a swath of the country in the afternoon today.

Astronomy buffs in China will enjoy fine weather conditions for  observing a rare annular solar eclipse across a swath of the  country in the afternoon today.

The longest annular eclipse for the next 1,000 years will be visible in some areas of Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces, Cheng Zhuo, a researcher with the Purple Mountain Observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said yesterday.

A partial eclipse will be seen in most of the rest of the country, Cheng said.

An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun but does not completely obscure it, thus leaving a ring - an annulus - of sunlight flaring around the lunar disk.

The last time it was seen in China was 23 years ago.

According to NASA's eclipse website, the Moon's shadow will strike the southwestern tip of Chad and western Central African Republic at 0514 GMT and then flit across Uganda, Kenya, and Somalia.

Its path then leads across the Indian Ocean, where the duration of "annularity" at 0706 GMT will be 11 minutes, eight seconds, making it "the longest annular eclipse of the 3rd Millennium," according to NASA.