Crowds Gather For Solar Eclipse

Guardian

March 29, 2006

The first total eclipse in years today plunged Ghana into daytime darkness, in an eagerly awaited solar show that will sweep northeast from Brazil to Mongolia.

As the heavens and earth moved into rare alignment, all that could be seen of the sun were the rays of its corona - the usually invisible extended atmosphere of the sun that glowed as a dull yellow ring, barely illuminating the west African nation.

Automatic street lamps switched on as the light faded, and authorities sounded emergency whistles in celebration. Schoolchildren and others across the capital, Accra, burst into applause. Many in Ghana, a deeply religious country of Christians and Muslims, said the phenomenon bolstered their faith.

"I've never experienced this and we all need to pray to God and worship him. I believe it's a wonderful work of God," said Solomon Pomenya, a 52-year old doctor. "This tells me that God is a true engineer."

From Ghana to Libya to Syria to Turkey and beyond, schools closed to watch the eclipse.

The last such total solar eclipse, in November 2003, was best viewed from Antarctica. But Wednesday's eclipse blocks the sun in highly populated areas, including West Africa, where governments have scrambled to educate people about the dangers of looking directly at the sun without proper eye protection.

Health authorities warned spectators not to stare at the eclipse and one expert in Lebanon advised that the safest way to see it was to stay at home and watch live coverage on television.

Crowds were anticipated in prime viewing points, among them Accra in Ghana, and in Turkey and India.

Nasa said Turkey would be the best spot to view the eclipse, and tens of thousands of tourists gathered along the Turkish Mediterranean coast.

Astronomers from Nasa and the Royal Institute of Astronomy were to view the phenomenon from an ancient Roman amphitheatre in Turkey. The moon began blocking out the sun in the morning in Brazil before the path of greatest blockage migrated to Africa, then on to Turkey and up into Mongolia, where it will fade out with the sunset. Even in Senegal, far from the eclipse's centre, the sun dimmed as a partial eclipse darkened skies in the capital, Dakar.

Total eclipses are rare because they require the tilted orbits of the sun, moon and earth to line up exactly so that the moon obscures the sun completely. The next total eclipse will occur in 2008.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006