‘Ring Of Fire’ Eclipse To Grace Skies Today

As the moon glides between the sun and the Earth on Thursday morning, a ring of sunshine will blaze above parts of Africa in a solar spectacle called an annular eclipse - also known as the "ring of fire."

Unlike the total solar eclipse, the annular eclipse happens when the moon does not cover the sun completely - and instead of seeing a white halo, they will see slivers of sunlight shining around the moon's silhouette instead. NASA's solar astrophysicist, C. Alex Young shared with The New York Times, "If they look up with protective eyewear they are going to see this strange ring in the sky, more spectacularly they will see these circular shadows. It's a cool event, the shadows are kind of eerie."

However, not everyone will have the chance to see the event. In fact, only a very select few can. According to the National Geographic, observers can actually see the entire annular eclipse only on a strip of land about 62 mile wide, startin in Gabon, on Africa's west coast, down through the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Mozambique. It will also cross to the islands of Madagascar and Reunion off the east coast.

The eclipse will begin at around 8:39 AM local time in Gabon, and will reach its peak by 10:06 AM. It will then make its final landfall over Reunion at 2:09 PM local time. For the best view, go to southern Tanzania, where viewers will see it for its longest duration of three minutes and six seconds.

The full eclipse path is fairly narrow, but the rest of the world should be able to see bits of it - a partial eclipse can be seen across most of Africa, including Morocco and Egypt, as well as the southern Arabian Peninsula. In Europe, the moon will cover up about 50 percent of the sun for the Italians, and 90 percent for the Icelandic, Scottish, Finnish, and Norwegian folks.