Great rings of fire

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Last year, everybody crowed about the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century. Now, they're at it again. What's the difference? Well, last year's eclipse was TOTAL, the Sun was completely gobbled up by the moon's shadow. This year, that won't happen. A thin round ring of the Sun will stay visible. The Greeks called that ring an "Annulus" - so such events are called "Annular Eclipses". But you and I can just call it - A Great Ring of Fire.

People much smarter than me, calculate that this year, we'll see a total of five eclipses (Lunar and Solar together). Interestingly, two of them are in January itself. (There was a Lunar Eclipse on January 1 - but we were too busy partying to notice ;) ).

The one on Friday, January 15 is "extra special". The last time India saw one like it was on Nov 22, 1965, and it'll be another ten years before we see a repeat. But here's the coolest bit. At the peak of this eclipse, 92% of the sun's disk will go dark. And it'll stay dark for eleven minutes and eight seconds (somewhere over the Indian Ocean). An eclipse that long, won't happen again till the year 3000 AD!

Grab a globe or a map as you read this. At 10.44 a.m, the Sun will VERY slowly start going dark over Africa. The moon's shadow, will move over Chad, the Central African Republic, Congo, Uganda, Kenya, and Somalia. Just in case you're interested, that shadow's almost 300 km broad and travels faster than a Jet plane.

In India, only folks on the southernmost tip will catch the event in its full glory. Kavaratti island in Lakshadweep will see the beginning of eclipse first, at 10.55 am. People in Tamil Nadu start "oohing" and "aahing" a few minutes later. Almost two hours after impressing the rest of India, the eclipse begins over Assam and Mizoram at around 12.29 pm.

If you're elsewhere in the country, you will see the eclipse but not in it's full glory. For example, only half the sun will be covered over Delhi and Chandigarh. Over Calcutta and Hyderabad, three quarters of the sun disappears. What's the best place to watch in India? Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu will see the sun go ALMOST completely black for 10 minutes and 13 seconds. Varkala in Kerala might come in a close second. But of course, that's if the weather permits. Last I heard, it was raining cats and dogs down south.

OK - quick revision. The sun starts going dark over over the southern tip of India around 10.44 a.m. Different parts of India see the eclipse start at different times. The sun keeps getting darker and darker, and at around 01:15 in the afternoon, it'll get as dark as it possibly can. Then, it slowly starts getting visible again, and by 3:15 in the evening, the eclipse finally leaves India for good.

Interestingly, priests at the centuries old Kamakshi temple in Guwahati will keep the doors shut for a full seven hours - that's the longest downtime for the place that anyone can remember. Astrologers might make dire predictions about your future too - apparently this eclipse is on the first day of the month of Magh, in the Hindu calendar. If you're an expert on how astrological predictions work, do write to me. It might be interesting to know.

Everyone else, do track our colleague Rati Chaudhary. She's on board the MV Aquamarine, India's first luxury cruise rigged out to chase the solar eclipse. From Cochin, to Maldives and back. A heaving ocean, a darkened sun and seven hundred and fifty people on board, witnessing the raw power of nature. It's the stuff Hollywood movies are made of.