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People wear protective glasses as they look up at a solar eclipse in Exmouth, Australia, Thursday, April 20, 2023. The lucky ones on the path of the hybrid eclipse will either be caught in the darkness of a total eclipse, or see the “ring of fire” as the sun peeks from behind the moon. (Aaron Bunch/AAP photo via Associated Press)
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Parts of Australia’s northwest coast plunged into brief midday darkness Thursday as 20,000 eclipse chasers gathered at a small outpost to watch a rare solar eclipse under cloudless skies, While temporarily cooling the tropical heat.
The remote tourist town of Exmouth, home to fewer than 3,000 people, is billed as one of the best places in Australia to view the solar eclipse, which also spans remote parts of Indonesia and Timor-Leste.
The international crowd has been gathering for days, camping out in tents and trailers on a red, dusty plain on the edge of town, with cameras and other viewing devices pointed skyward.
NASA astronomer Henry Throop also cheered loudly in the darkness of Exmouth.
“Isn’t it unbelievable? It’s amazing. It’s so exciting. It’s so sharp, it’s so bright. You can see the corona around the sun in there,” said the visibly excited Washington. said the resident.
“It’s only a minute long, but it really feels like a long time. You don’t see anything else that looks like that. It’s just amazing. Spectacular. Then you can see Jupiter and Mercury and be able to see them for a day at the same time in 2019 — not even seeing Mercury at all. So that’s pretty awesome,” Throop added.
This composite photo shows a hybrid solar eclipse seen from Lautern, East Timor, on Thursday, April 20, 2023. A rare solar eclipse will pass across remote parts of Australia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste on Thursday. (AP Photo/Lorenio L. Pereira)
The Sun and Moon are pictured near Exmouth, Australia, during a solar eclipse on Thursday, April 20, 2023. The lucky ones on the path of the hybrid eclipse will either be plunged into total eclipse darkness, or they’ll see the “ring of fire” as the sun peeks out from behind the moon. (Aaron Bunch/AAP photo via Associated Press)
First-time eclipse chaser Julie Copson, who traveled more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) north from the port city of Freemantle on Australia’s west coast to Exmouth, said the phenomenon made her skin tingle.
“I was so emotional, like I wanted to cry. The colors changed, seeing the corona and the solar flares…,” Copson said.
“It was very intense and the temperature dropped a lot,” she added, referring to the sudden drop of 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) from 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) as the moon’s shadow cast over the region.
It was the fifth solar eclipse for Detroit resident Shane Varrti, who started planning a trip to Exmouth a year ago.
“It’s very exciting. All these efforts are paying off,” Varrti said.
In the Indonesian capital, hundreds of people descended on the Jakarta Planetarium to watch a partial solar eclipse obscured by clouds.
Azka Azzahra, 21, arrived with her sister and friends to join hundreds of other tourists using telescopes for an up-close look.
“Even though it’s cloudy, I’m excited to be here. It’s nice to see the enthusiasm of people coming here to see a solar eclipse because it’s rare,” Azara said.
Calls to prayer rang out from the city’s mosques as the eclipse phase began, as Muslims in the country with the world’s largest Muslim population said eclipse prayers were a reminder of God’s greatness.
People wear protective glasses to watch a solar eclipse in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, April 20, 2023. A rare solar eclipse will pass across remote parts of Australia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste on Thursday. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
A partial solar eclipse is seen in clouds over Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, April 20, 2023. A rare solar eclipse will be seen in remote parts of Australia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste on Thursday. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
In East Timor, people gather around the beach in the city of Lautem to witness a rare solar eclipse through eclipse glasses. Some of them came from other countries and gathered with the locals to see the eclipse clearly.
“East Timor is one of the unique countries where there is less humidity and less cloud cover, so we expect clear skies, which is why many international astronomers want to gather here. We hope there will be clear skies,” Zahri bin Ahmed, an astronomer with the Southeast Asia Astronomy Network in Brunei, said as he waited Thursday.
People cheered as the sun and moon reached maximum eclipse.
“This is a very new natural phenomenon for Timor-Leste. It is very important for us to be able to witness and experience it first-hand,” said Martinho Fatima, a civil protection official.
The hybrid eclipse was tracked from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, mostly over water. As the sun peeked from behind the new moon, a lucky few saw the dark or “ring of fire” of a total solar eclipse in its path.
Such celestial events occur approximately every ten years: the last one occurred in 2013, and the next one won’t be until 2031. They occur when Earth is in its “sweet spot,” so the moon and sun are nearly the exact same size in Earth’s sky, says NASA solar expert Michael Kirk.
At some point, the moon will move closer and block the sun during a total solar eclipse. But when the moon is a little farther away, it lets some of the sun’s light out in an annular solar eclipse.
“It’s a crazy phenomenon,” Kirk said. “You’re actually watching the moon get bigger in the sky.”
Several other upcoming eclipses will be easier to catch. Both the annular solar eclipse in mid-October and the total solar eclipse in April 2024 will cross millions of people across the Americas.
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Brakov reported from New York. Associated Press reporter Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.
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