A solar eclipse early Tuesday will be a cosmic sight to behold -- if you're a penguin -- that is because it will be visible only in a remote region of Antarctica.
The first solar eclipse of the year will be an annular eclipse, creating a temporary "ring of fire," rather than a total eclipse.
In a total eclipses, the moon sits closer to the Earth and completely covers the disc of the sun, while during annular eclipses the moon orbits a bit further from us, so its shadow is a little smaller than the sun's disc and allows the "ring of fire" to form around it.
U.S. sky watchers can at least get a vicarious view of the eclipse, which will be streamed online live from the Slooh Space Camera starting at 2 a.m. ET Tuesday.
Scientists living and working at the South Pole will have to settle for the online stream as well, since the sun stays below the horizon from their point of view in the long Antarctic winter. Only a tiny sliver of the Antarctic continent will see the sun just managing to rise above the horizon in time to be eclipsed.
While only that tiny part of the frozen continent will see the full annular eclipse, it will be observable as a partial eclipse in Australia and southern Indonesia.
It will be the last chance for Australians to see the moon cover the sun in this fashion until 2028, as per astronomer Alan Duffy at the Swinburne University of Technology.
"Eclipses are one of Nature's greatest visual spectacles and a powerful reminder that our Solar System is a dynamic and ever-changing place," Duffy said. "For astronomers the eclipse is a great opportunity to learn about the corona, the outer edges of the Sun's atmosphere, which would normally be outshone by the rest of the Sun. Although this is only a partial eclipse it should still be quite a show."
"That eclipses happen at all is an amazing coincidence, as the Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon," he added. "But since the Moon is 400 times closer to Earth than the Sun, they both appear the same size in the sky and we get to witness this great natural phenomenon."
Coming only two weeks after a total lunar eclipse on April 15, the annular eclipse is first of two solar eclipses that will occur this year.
