Today is an interesting and rather awe-inspiring day in a part of the Americas: we had an annular eclipse. Unlike a total eclipse, where the moon covers the sun in its entirety, an annual eclipse does not. That's because with the moon is at its furthest point from the earth, our celestial sister is not close enough to cover the sun completely. This results in what i called a Ring of Fire - produced when the moon is centered with the sun, resulting in a bright ring around the dark spot that is the moon. It is super neat.
Here in the US, the annular eclipse started in Oregon before cutting a swath through the Southwest and moving across the Gulf of Mexico into the Yucatan Peninsula. It then headed across Central America and curved into the Amazon basin before traveling across Brazil and ending somewhere in the ocean off its eastern coast.
Where I live, we only saw 45% of it because we were outside of its main path, and even then, we didn't get to see very much because Mother Nature decided she wanted it to rain today. However, clouds parted a couple of times, allowing us to catch a glimpse of the new moon passing over the sun before once again becoming obscured. No ring of fire for us, though, what we saw looked more like Pac-Man than anything else. Still, it was very cool. The next annular solar eclipse visible from the US won’t happen until 2039, and the only way to view it is if you live in Alaska - as it is the only state in the path. While that is a bit of a bummer, the US can look forward to a total eclipse, which will occur on April 8, 2024. Where I live, we'll only have to drive a couple of hours west to experience it.
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