Southern Chile and Argentina plunged into darkness for more than two minutes early Monday afternoon when the moon completely covered the disk of the sun during the upcoming total eclipse.
Thousands of people who wore sunscreen goggles could fully witness the astronomical event in the Bariloche region (southern Argentina), as the weather was clear.
However, the continuous precipitation and cloudy sky with black clouds partially spoiled the scene in Chile, 800 km south of the capital Santiago, as part of its details were deprived of its followers.
In the tourist city of Pucon near Lake Viarica, the intensity of the rain increased during the morning period, dashing the hopes of those who went to the area specially to see the moment when the earth, the moon and the sun were in the same alignment, and it was expected at 13:00 local time (16:00 GMT), They should last two minutes and nine seconds.
But around the time of the eclipse, the clouds had thinned over the lake’s bank as thousands of people gathered in rainwear.
Matthias Tordesia (18 years old) expressed his happiness, saying, “The eclipse was wonderful and unique. We had little hope of seeing it because of the clouds, but the moment the sky was opened when the clouds cleared was unique. It is a miracle!”
The young man, who drove more than ten hours with his family to live closely with this cosmic scene, added, “It is something that one can not only see with the eye, but also feel it with his body.”
As for Cynthia Vega, a resident of Pucon, she said that her body “shuddered” when the sky was dark.
Tens of thousands of scientists or amateur astronomers flocked a few days ago to the region, where they set up their telescopes at the foot of Viarica, one of Chile’s most active volcanoes.
However, the winds did not pass this time as they had desired, unlike in July 2019, when the sky in northern Chile was pure blue during the total eclipse, while about 300 thousand people were gathered in the middle of the Atacama desert, where a number of observatories Astrological.
– Complete scene – In Carahoe, near the coast of Chile on the Pacific Ocean, the eclipse was accompanied by the prayers of the indigenous people of the Mapuche group, the largest group of the local population, as they see in this phenomenon the end of an era and the beginning of a new process.
In the Santiago metropolitan area, where seven million out of a population of 15 million people live under movement restrictions due to increased infections with the new Corona virus, the fading of sunlight was fleeting and led to a slight decrease in temperature.
The path of the Moon’s shadow, a narrow strip of 90 kilometers in width where darkness was complete, began over the Pacific Ocean and reached the Chilean lands, and then crossed the Andes Mountains, then southern Argentina from west to east, before continuing on its way to the South Atlantic.
Near the tourist city of Bariloche in Patagonia, several families eagerly awaited the arrival of the eclipse. A number of American tourists expressed their hope that their efforts would not be in vain, after obtaining entry permits required them to follow complex administrative procedures and undergo several checks for the Coronavirus.
But the sky remained clear and clear of clouds when the moon began to nibble at the sun. Bright smiles behind the goggles covered the faces of the lucky viewers, reaching a climax where the sun had disappeared.
Two total solar eclipses occur every year, but the possibility of observing them depends on the time of their occurrence and the time period of the year.
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