JAKARTA, March 9 (UPI) — The new moon passed directly in front of the sun over southeast Asia early Wednesday morning, creating a total eclipse of the sun.
The eclipse, which was captured on time-lapse video and shared on Facebook by NASA, caused the morning sky over Indonesia and other parts of southeast Asia to briefly go dark Wednesday morning as the moon passed between the sun and the earth.
Partial eclipses were reported at the same time in locations including Singapore, Hawaii and the westernmost parts of the contiguous United States.
NASA said prior to the eclipse that scientists would be using the phenomenon to study the sun’s atmosphere.
“They plan to take 59 several-second exposures of the sun in just over three minutes, capturing data on the innermost parts of the sun’s volatile, superhot atmosphere — a region we can only observe during total solar eclipses when the sun’s overwhelmingly bright face is completely blocked by the moon,” the space agency said.
