The Century’s Longest Solar Eclipse – July 22 2009
On Wednesday, 22 July 2009, parts of the world witnessed the century’s longest solar eclipse, lasting 6.39 minutes. It was a total solar eclipse, too. The next solar eclipse will take occur on 15 January 2010, but it will have only 62 per cent visibility.
In India, complete solar eclipse was visible in areas such as Muzaffarpur, Navarsi, Patna, Sagar, Siliguri, Surat, Ujjain, Bhagalpur, Bhavnagar, Bhopal, Mirzapur, Munger, Bihar Sharif, Darbhanga, Gaya, Indore, Jabalpur, Vadodara And Varanasi. And in Siliguri it lasted 4.06 minutes. There were stampedes in a lot of places as people thronged to witness this otherworldly phenomenon.
UN had declared 2009 as year of astronomy, and the this total solar eclipse came in the same year! The year 2009 marks 400 years of Galileo using a telescope.
During the eclipse, Chennai witnessed another sight. Dolphins were seen happily jumping out in the sea near the beaches. A lot of tourists and locals went forward to enjoy the beautiful sight. Experts say the dolphins were out because of the eclipse’s occurrence.
Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA’s GSFC.
