Ring Of Fire Eclipse On Sunday

24 February 2017

 - The next new moon will fall on February 26, 2017, to usher in the first of two solar eclipses in 2017. It will be an annular eclipse, nowadays often called a ring of fire eclipse. During an annular eclipse, the outer edge of the sun appears as a thin ring (annulus) of sunshine around the moon. An annular eclipse is, essentially, a special type of partial eclipse. At no time will the sky grow dark, and you’ll need continual eye protection to watch it, assuming you’re in a place on Earth where the eclipse is visible. The February 26 eclipse will be visible from Earth’s Southern Hemisphere, mainly over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

On land, the annular eclipse will be viewed from southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and the southeastern part of Africa (Angola, Zambia, Democratic Republic of the Congo). A partial solar eclipse will be visible from a much larger swath of South America and Africa, plus Antarctica.