In Pics: 'Ring of Fire' during annual solar eclipse wows skywatchers

People across several parts of the world witnessed a breathtaking celestial event — an annular solar eclipse, commonly known as the "ring of fire."

Several parts of the world observed a rare celestial spectacle yesterday — an annular solar eclipse, often referred to as a "ring of fire" eclipse.

The phenomenon occurs when the Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, because the Moon was too far from Earth, it did not completely cover the Sun’s disk.

During the peak of the eclipse, the outer edges of the Sun remained visible, forming a bright, fiery ring around the Moon. This happened because the Moon was at or near its apogee, the farthest point from Earth, making it appear smaller in the sky. As a result, instead of a total eclipse, observers witnessed the glowing "ring of fire."

The eclipse began its journey across the globe on Wednesday at 9:12 pm IST in the Southern Pacific Ocean.

The path of annularity, where the ring of fire was visible, was about 265 km wide at its maximum. It made landfall in southern Chile around 10:20 pm IST and continued across parts of Argentina before concluding in the southern Atlantic Ocean at 2:09 am IST on Thursday.

One of the most fascinating viewing spots was Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, where the remote Chilean territory saw 87% of the Sun’s disk covered, with the annular phase visible from 9:33 pm to 9:39 pm IST.

Unfortunately, this stunning event was not visible from India, with no part of the eclipse observable from the country.