Guwahati: The first solar eclipse of the year took place on Thursday (April 20, 2023).
It is the first solar eclipse of 2023 which is extra-special as a fact that it is a rare hybrid eclipse. There will be four eclipse events this year and this one is one of them.
However, India will only be able to see two of these.
A hybrid solar eclipse is one that begins as an annual eclipse and then changes to a total eclipse or the other way around.
An uncommon celestial occurrence that happens about once every ten years is a hybrid solar eclipse. The Associated Press reports that the most recent one happened in 2013 and the following one won’t happen until 2031.
It passes across inaccessible regions of Australia, Indonesia and East Timor. But India won’t be able to see it.
Those who are fortunate enough to be in the path of the hybrid solar eclipse may either experience utter darkness or witness a “ring of fire” as the sun peeks out from behind the moon.
The majority of the eclipse’s course will be over sea as it swoops from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The duration of the total eclipse for viewers will be just over a minute.
A partial solar eclipse will be seen across Southeast Asia, the East Indies, Australia, the Philippines, and New Zealand, according to Al Jazeera.
The began at 7.04 am IST and will last till 12.29 pm IST, according to Dr Subhendu Pattnaik, Deputy Director of Pathani Samanta Planetarium in Odisha.