RARE ANNULAR "RING OF FIRE" TO BLACKOUT INDIA Sky-watchers along a narrow band from west Africa to the Arabian peninsula, India and southern China will witness the most dramatic “ring of fire” solar eclipse in years on Sunday. Annular eclipses occur when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, but not quite close enough to our planet to completely obscure the sun’s light. They occur every year or two, and can only been seen from a narrow pathway across the planet. The “ring of fire” will first be seen in northeastern Republic of Congo at 5:56 local time (04:56 GMT) just a few minutes after sunrise. This is the point of maximum duration, with the bla ckout lasting 1 minute and 22 seconds. Arcing eastward across Asia and Africa, it will reach “maximum eclipse” — with a perfect solar halo around the Moon — over Uttarakhand, India near the Sino-Indian border at 12:10 local time (6:40 GMT). More spectacular, but less long-lived: the exact alignment of the Earth, Moon and Sun...
