West Africa is set to experience two spectacular solar eclipses in 2025, offering a rare celestial event for the region. Discover the dates and visibility details of these upcoming eclipses.
A ring in the South American sky will dominate them all next week.
An annular solar eclipse, known as the “Ring of Fire”, will be visible on Easter Island and in the southern provinces of Argentina and Chile on Wednesday, October 2nd.
But what is an annular solar eclipse?
A solar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Moon and Earth line up. The Moon casts a shadow which may block some or all of the sunlight.
During an annular solar eclipse, the moon will obscure the sun except for a ring of stars. This is because the moon is at a point further away from Earth in its orbit.
“The moon isn’t big enough to cover the sun,” explains Dr. Carolyn Sumners, vice president of astronomy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
The eclipse will mostly occur over the Pacific Ocean, Sumners adds.
“There’s a 95% chance that this annular solar eclipse will occur over water. So you have to position your boat in the right place. So most people won’t see it — there’s only a 5% chance that it’ll be over land. But this eclipse is actually passing over Easter Island, the most inhabited place on Earth with its big statues, a great place to have it all to yourself. “That makes it a rare eclipse,” says Dr. Sumner.
The partial eclipse, where the sun looks like a crescent moon, can be seen in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Hawaii.
“It starts just before noon on Easter Island and ends at 2:50 pm, just before 3 pm. And for the longest time the moon will be in front of the sun, moving in front of the sun for about six minutes – this is called an angle. And it’s not a total solar eclipse. “It’s an annular solar eclipse – you’ll need glasses to protect your eyes – but it’s made even more unusual by the unusual location from which you can observe it,” says Dr. Sumner.
Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is known for its Moai, monolithic human-shaped statues.
Solar eclipses occur about two to five times a year, but are only visible from locations within the moon’s narrow shadow.
A total solar eclipse struck all of North America in April.
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For Dr. Sumner, it’s not just the magical spectacle of the eclipse that makes this event special.
“The most important thing about an eclipse is the experience, and you get to have this experience whenever there is an eclipse. “If you become the kind of person who follows eclipses, you get to go to amazing places all over the world,” she says.
“Bring your family, do this at any time you can vote, and expect something special to happen. “This is a way to document your life, to take advantage of the eclipses and the stories that come out of them, and the photographs that are taken to accompany each eclipse,” Sumners continues.
Witnessing a solar eclipse is an exciting and fun event, but safety must always come first.
Looking directly at the Sun can cause eye damage, even when most of it is blocked.
The upcoming annular solar eclipse can be viewed safely using eclipse glasses that block the Sun’s ultraviolet rays and nearly all of its visible light. Sunglasses or binoculars alone are not sufficient.
Safe eclipse glasses must be shown to comply with the ISO 12312-2 standard.
“It’s really dangerous if you want to see the moon. We want to see it so badly that we actually have to filter it. The only time you don’t apply filtering is if it’s complete. Even at 95% coverage, like you see just before you get to complete, it’s not actually safe, because what’s up there is shining brighter than it’s ever been. And if you stare at it, you might be messing with a little bit of the retina of your eye, but it’s still a problem,” Sumners explains.
“So you should wear glasses except when the Moon completely covers the Sun’s photosphere.”
Because totality is not achieved during an annular solar eclipse, it is recommended that you wear eclipse glasses during the event.
If you can’t get hold of eclipse glasses, you can still enjoy the eclipse instead.
Dr. Sumners suggests making a pinhole camera projector using materials you have at home.
“The easiest way for most people is to take a cereal box, a big family-size cereal box, and shine a light into the top quarter, say half, of the cereal box, and look through there and look through the other half. There’s a hole in one half, and you get a picture of the Sun on the back of the box,” she says.
After the Ring of Fire solar eclipse on October 2nd, two partial solar eclipses will bring a crescent moon over parts of North America, Europe, West Africa and Antarctica next year.
And after two total lunar eclipses in 2025, the moon will turn red starting March 13.
The next total solar eclipse won’t happen until 2026, when it will pass over Greenland, Iceland and the northern tip of Spain.
