New Delhi: Astronomy enthusiasts gazed at the sun when a partial solar eclipse occurred on Tuesday afternoon. It was observed in several areas of the country. In Srinagar, it was the maximum. The moon covered 55% of the sun there, official sources said. In Delhi, the moon covered 43% of the solar disc. As the eclipse occurred in the afternoon and its ending took place after sunset, the wind-up was not visible in India.
According to scientists, a solar eclipse occurs on a new moon day when the moon comes in between the earth and the sun and the partial eclipse occurs when the moon partially covers the sun.
Just as the solar eclipse began, many people remained inside their rooms. Since it was the second day of Diwali, the festival of lights, the roads were empty in different parts of the country.
Solar eclipse which lasted for one hour and 45 minutes win India was visible for more than an hour in New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Jaipur, Indore, Thane, Bhopal, Ludhiana, Agra, Chandigarh, Ujjain, Mathura, Porbandar, Gandhinagar, Silvassa, Surat and Panaji. The cities like Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mangaluru, Coimbatore, Ooty, Varanasi and Thiruvananthapuram saw the eclipse for less than an hour. The people of Aizawl, Dibrugarh, Imphal, Kohima and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were deprived of this celestial event.
In Bhopal, a large number of students of astronomy went to their roof tops and watched the celestial phenomenon, but they, too, were deprived of the ending of this event. After sunset, when the eclipse ended, many people took bath in rivers and water bodies across the country and offered prayers at temples.
Besides India, the partial solar eclipse was visible in Europe, Middle East, north-eastern parts of Africa, western Asia, the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Indian Ocean.
