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Annular Solar Eclipse Arrives on Sunday

By Dr. Tony Phillips - Science@NASA

Credit: D. L. Mammana

"The ring of fire:" Astrophotographer Dennis L. Mammana photographed this annular eclipse behind palm trees in January 1994.

May 3, 2012 Updated May 15, 2012 at 4:43 PM PDT

(Science@NASA) Mark your calendar. On Sunday, May 20th, the sun is going to turn into a ring of fire. It's an annular solar eclipse--the first one in the US in almost 18 years.

An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the sun, but the lunar disk is not quite wide enough to cover the entire star. At maximum, the Moon forms a "black hole" in the center of the sun.

The “path of annularity” is a strip about 185 miles wide and thousands of miles long. It stretches from China and Japan, across the Pacific Ocean, to the middle of North America. In the United States, the afternoon sun will become a luminous ring in places such as Medford, Oregon; Chico, California; Reno, Nevada; St. George, Utah; Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Lubbock, Texas.

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