SPACE ENTHUSIASTS! THIS IS FOR YOU ALL! AN ECLIPSE THAT COMES ONCE IN A DECADE – THE HYBRID SOLAR ECLIPSE IS HERE!
Grab your telescopes and head on to the terrace on 20 April 2023. And there, yes! You’ll witness the first Solar Eclipse of 2023, which is also the rare eclipse that happens once in 10 years aka the Hybrid Solar Eclipse; the last Hybrid Eclipse was observed in November 2013 and the next will be in 2031. Firsts let me give details of, from where it will be visible and at what time it will be visible.
This special and extremely rare eclipse is called Ningaloo solar eclipse. This mesmerizing event will begin at 07:04 am and will end at 12:29 pm, which means the duration is going to be 5hrs; but the actual eclipse is 76sec.
And speaking about the places from where it will be visible; the eclipse begins in the Indian Ocean at sunrise and ends in the Pacific Ocean at sunset making its most path in the sea hence this eclipse will be visible from the South-Eastern parts of Asia and Western Australia.
The bad news to us Indians is that we will not be able to witness this splendid event, but no worries many websites and YouTube channels got us covered and will be giving live broadcasts from Western Australia.
A Hybrid Solar eclipse is a very rare eclipse in which, we see it change from an annular form to a total solar eclipse and vise-versa. During the whole eclipse, you can actually witness three phases of eclipses – the annular, the total, and the partial solar eclipse; but this might depend on the position you are standing.
A solar eclipse occurs when the sun is blocked by the moon as it passes from between the sun and the Earth and this causes the moon’s shadow to be cast on the Earth ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_20,_2023#/media/File:SE2023Apr20H.gif this link from Wikipedia gives the animated path of the moon’s shadow on Earth). A Hybrid Solar Eclipse occurs when the match-up size of the sun and the moon is nearly similar and due to this when the moon’s shadow is cast on the earth, the earth’s curvature causes for moon’s umbra to be interrupted by the eclipse path and that gives us a dark shadow that causes a total solar eclipse and the rest area that remained outside will lead to the occurrence of an annular eclipse. Let me first explain what these three phases are –
Total Solar Eclipse
When the moon totally blocks the sun and Earth is covered by the shadow of the moon.
Annular Solar Eclipse
When the moon covers the sun completely, the sun’s outer ring is not covered due to the moon’s relatively small size, and this visible area of the sun when completely covered by the moon is of a ring shape and is clearly visible from the earth. The ring is called the ‘ring of fire’.
Partial Solar Eclipse
This occurs when the sun is covered by the moon only to some extent leading to the penumbra region of the moon’s shadow being cast on the Earth.
These are the three types of eclipse that occur in general but this time, they all will be visible in one single eclipse and that is why it is called the ‘Hybrid Eclipse’. Now that we all know what this is all about let us not miss this amazing astronomical event even if it is online, so try to witness the event though broadcasts if you live where the event is not visible. how excited are you all? let us know in the comment section and check-out tvbharat24.com for more such interesting news.