NASA

How to Watch This Weekend's ‘Ring of Fire' Eclipse

Skygazers in parts of Africa and Asia will be able to witness the first solar eclipse of the decade in person, but people around the world can watch the celestial alignment online

The moon moves in front of the sun in a rare "ring of fire" solar eclipse
Ferdinandh Cabrera / AFP via Getty Images

This weekend, the moon will glide between Earth and the sun, blocking everything but a dazzling ring of light for a celestial spectacle known as a "ring of fire" eclipse.

The event, known as an annular solar eclipse, occurs when the moon is too far from Earth to block out the entire sun, leaving the sun peeking out over the Moon's disk in a "ring of fire,“ according to NASA.

Skygazers in parts of Africa and Asia, including the Central African Republic, Congo, Ethiopia, southern Pakistan, northern India, and China, will be able to witness the first solar eclipse of the decade in person, but people around the world can watch the celestial alignment online.

The eclipse will begin at 11:45 p.m. ET Saturday, June 20 and end over the Pacific Ocean around 5:34 a.m. ET Sunday, June 21, according to NASA. It will peak at 2:40 a.m. ET Sunday.

You can watch the eclipse live through the Virtual Telescope Project or on YouTube courtesy of Slooh's online observatory project.

Sunday's "ring of fire" solar eclipse comes amid the so-called "eclipse season" of 2020, which features three eclipses in the span of a month, according to NASA.  The first event was a relatively minor penumbral lunar eclipse on June 5. After Sunday's solar eclipse, another minor lunar eclipse will occur overnight on July 4 and 5.

People in parts of Southern Asia caught a glimpse of a "ring of fire" solar eclipse Thursday.
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