Americans in a swathe of states across the union will have an incredible opportunity over the weekend to catch a glimpse of a rare “ring of fire” solar eclipse. The rare solar phenomenon will appear on Saturday over a collection of Western states, including Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and some parts of California, Idaho, Colorado, and Arizona. The eclipse will also be visible in parts of Central and South America.
Yet better, Americans in the rest of the Continental United States will get to catch a glimpse of the annual solar eclipse, just without getting to witness the “ring of fire” effect that their countrymen in the Southwest will get to see.
Though solar eclipses are not particularly rare, the ring of fire effect is more so. It was last seen in the United States in 2012, for example. The effect occurs when the moon, passing in front of the sun, appears smaller because of the angle involved, making it highlighted by a halo of orange, fiery light.
CNN, describing the phenomenon, said, “Annular solar eclipses are like total solar eclipses, except the moon is at the farthest point in its orbit from Earth, so it can’t completely block the sun. Instead, the sun’s fiery light surrounds the moon’s shadow, creating the so-called ring of fire.”
Mitzi Adams, assistant chief of the Heliophysics and Planetary Science Branch at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, also describing the phenomenon, said, “It is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. It’s sort of like somebody puts a bowl on top of Earth right above where you’re standing. In the middle of the day, it gets darker, but you can still see light around the rim.”
Here is what such an eclipse looks like:
The “Ring of Fire” eclipse is coming. Seriously, don’t look directly at it. pic.twitter.com/1JUftw29Na
— NOVA | PBS (@novapbs) October 12, 2023
Speaking to Fox News Digital about the upcoming eclipse, National Geographic space expert Allie Yang said that eye protection is still important when viewing the eclipse. She warned, “You’d think that with some of the sun blocked by the moon, it might be safer to look at — but the opposite is true.”
Continuing, Yang went on to add, “Even a sliver of sun, as we’ll see in this year’s eclipse, will scorch your eyes, especially because your pupils are dilated in the relative darkness.” She then said, “Irreversible damage can happen in seconds.”
Then, commenting on another interesting aspect of the upcoming eclipse, Yang said, “If you’re outside, you might hear nighttime animals come out. You may feel the coolness of the sun being blocked, and its warmth returning as the moon passes the sun.”
America will experience a more total solar eclipse in the spring of 2024, though without the exciting and rarer “ring of fire” effect that separates this one from the past few eclipses that more Americans might remember, such as the eclipse during the Trump presidency that Trump looked at without the eclipse glasses.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
"*" indicates required fields