Asia Witness The Longest Solar Eclipse Of The Century

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What has now come to be known as ‘the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century’ made its grand appearance in two of the biggest Asian countries, India and China. This incredible celestial phenomenon began its journey from India and started moving to Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Vietnam, China in the end covering many parts of the Pacific Rim. As per NASA estimates, the solar eclipse covered a distance of 250 km-wide (155 miles).
In the Indian holy state of Varanasi, people pf all sex and ages gathered around the Ganges river and prayed to the heavens. According to the Indian mythology, taking a dip in the holy river at the time of a solar eclipse makes a person free from the cycle of life and death.

This longest eclipse in of the century, wasn’t only a spectacle for the curious and the devotees, it was also an extremely rare chance for the scientific community to study the sun’s corona, that in regular conditions would be impossible to observe. According to Harish Bhatt (Dean, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore),

“This is indeed quite an important event for scientific experiments. Its long duration provides you an opportunity to make very complicated, complex experiments. Scientists in China planned to snap two-dimensional images of the sun’s corona — up to 2 million degrees Celsius (3.6 million F) hot — at roughly one image per second.“

Today’s solar eclipse was the longest in the 21st century, as it lasted maximum of 6 minutes, 39 seconds over the Pacific Ocean. The only other longer solar eclipse other than today’s will occur on June 13th, 2132.


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