WASHINGTON: Millions of people across Europe looked to the skies on Friday to catch a glimpse of a rare solar eclipse, though a blanket of clouds across large parts of the continent obscured the view for many.
Residents of the remote Svalbard archipelago in the Norwegian Arctic were among the best placed to view the astronomical spectacle. For about two minutes and 45 seconds, the moon totally obscured the sun, bringing darkness to the land. The spectacle — from the time when the moon starts to cover the sun to when it completely passes across its face — lasted for more than two hours.
“It was amazing,” said Tone Hertzberg, who lives in Longyearbyen, a town in Svalbard. “The sun was like a dark circle in the sky with light only around the edges. All of a sudden the streetlights came on and you could see the headlights on cars.”
“It lasted for about two minutes and then the sun came back. It was all over very quickly.”
Annika Gunnarsdottir, who works at a hotel in the Faeroe Islands, one of the few places on land in the path of totality, was also amazed.
“Everybody was watching and it was very quiet. No cars,” she said. “It was a bit cloudy here today, but it was clear at the time of the eclipse so we could see it.”
But some who travelled to the Faeroe Islands were left disappointed as clouds obscured the eclipse.
“Some people could not see the total eclipse at all from where they were standing,” said Erik Fey, a travel agent in the Faeroe Islands.
Tesla driverless system to use updated radar technology
WASHINGTON: Electric carmaker Tesla announced Sunday it was upgrading its Autopilot software to use more advanced radar technology. In a...
