Timor-Leste is preparing to welcome scientists and visitors from various countries in April to witness a hybrid solar eclipse, the rarest phenomenon of its kind, which will be visible in the east of the country.
Teams from the Presidency of the Republic and the Government, volunteers in Timor-Leste and in other countries participate in the preparation of various activities planned to monitor the phenomenon, which takes place on April 20.
Elements involved in the preparations told Lusa that there was interest from researchers from various countries, also anticipating the visit of tourists from the region and even from Europe.
The objective, according to a first informative note, is to involve universities and schools to “take advantage of the phenomenon to promote knowledge about astronomy and the solar system” and even to “learn to build small telescopes and observation lenses.”
The teams involved want to take advantage of the phenomenon to bring researchers to Timor-Leste, but also tourists, including cruise ships and other visitors.
In this sense, a website has already been created to publicize the event (www.eclipsetimor.com) and pages on social networks.
The objective, according to the organizers, is to achieve the visit of up to 5,000 people, with special packages to be designed, with the support of tour operators, to take advantage of and publicize the country, especially in terms of maritime and diving tourism. .
The hybrid solar eclipse, which will leave much of Timor-Leste in darkness, is considered the rarest form of this phenomenon, as it combines an annular eclipse seen from some points on Earth and a total eclipse from others.
Beginning as an annular eclipse and ending as a total, the hybrid occurs because the moon’s shadow does not touch the Earth’s curved surface at the extremes, that is, sunrise and sunset.
What makes it particularly rare is the extremely narrow range of the moon’s shadow hitting Earth, which is positioned to the millimeter so that both eclipses occur during the same event.
Timor-Leste becomes a preferred scenario to monitor this phenomenon since, according to scientists, it will be in the east of the island where the totality of the eclipse will be seen for the longest time.
The data indicates that, in addition to remote places at sea, the phenomenon will be visible for one minute and 14 seconds in Timor-Leste.
The moment of totality will also allow us to see the so-called ‘Baily beads’, or the diamond ring effect, so known because they were first recorded by the English astronomer Francis Baily.
These are the effects of the last rays of the sun that can be seen traversing the valleys of the moon just before totality and at the end of the process.
Source: TSF
