Eclipse Halo

• Solar Eclipse Over Chile

  Photograph by Eliseo Fernandez, Reuters

  The moon takes a bite out of the sun Sunday over the seaside town of Valparaiso, Chile, during a partial solar eclipse. The photographer created the effect by shooting the top part of the picture through a piece of exposed x-ray film.
  During a total solar eclipse, the moon passes completely between Earth and the sun, casting a circular shadow over the planet. On the ground, viewers in the full shadow's path—aka the path of totality—see the moon cover the sun's disk for several minutes. Only the sun's faint upper atmosphere, or corona, remains visible.
  The full effect of Sunday's total solar eclipse was visible to just a few people along a narrow, 155-mile-wide (250-kilometer-wide) band of the Pacific Ocean. Starting north of New Zealand, the path of the moon's shadow swept over a few remote islands—including the Chilean territory of Easter Island (Isla de Pascua)—and ended over the southernmost tip of South America.
  
  Sky-watchers flocked by the thousands to Polynesian islands or booked passage on cruise ships to see the total solar eclipse. Viewers in Valparaiso, 75 miles (121 kilometers) northwest of Santiago, were among those in the Pacific Basin and in South America able to see a partial eclipse.
  
  —with reporting by Andrew Fazekas
  

  Published July 12, 2010

• Easter Island Eclipse Watcher

  Photograph by Eliseo Fernandez, Reuters

  One of Easter Island's famous stone statues, or moai, seems to turn its back on the total solar eclipse Sunday, while a woman uses a special filter for safe eclipse viewing. (Watch video: "Solar Eclipse to Darken Easter Island.")
  Looking directly at the sun—even during an eclipse—can permanently damage human eyes. Eclipse experts recommend wearing sun-safe glasses and watching the spectacle only for short periods.
  

  Published July 12, 2010

• Photograph by Martin Bernetti, AFP/Getty Images

  During Sunday's total solar eclipse, the moon covered the sun over Easter Island, so that only the faint, white ring of the sun's upper atmosphere, or corona, was visible.
  
  Eclipse expert and National Geographic grantee Jay Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, was on Easter Island to witness his 51st solar eclipse. According to Pasachoff, eclipses offer scientists unique opportunities to study the corona, parts of which are invisible even to sun-watching satellites.
  "On the days of eclipses—and only on those days—can we supply high-quality images of the inner and middle corona that fill in the gaps in spacecraft coverage," Pasachoff told National Geographic News last week. "We can learn about the sun's magnetic field and the relation of the sun and the Earth by studying eclipses."
  (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
  

  Published July 12, 2010