July 1: The Solar Eclipse No One Will See

Another moon-like phase of a partial solar eclipse, this amazing sunrise photo was captured in Catalonia, Spain, during the first partial solar eclipse of the year, on Jan. 4, 2011. CREDIT: © Peresanz | Dreamstime.com View full size image

There's a partial solar eclipse scheduled for July 1, but don't get out your pinhole viewer. This eclipse may well be one that no one on Earth can see.

That's because the eclipse is only visible in a D-shaped region above the Antarctic Ocean south of Africa. Even the researchers who station for the winter in Antarctica nearest to the eclipse's path are unlikely to notice anything out of the ordinary, because the sun permanently settles below the horizon during Antarctic winter .

So you'll have to take NASA's word for it: At 8:38 a.m. Universal Time (or Greenwich Mean Time), the moon will pass between the sun and the Earth, blocking (as seen from Earth) 9.7 percent of the sun's face.

The invisible eclipse is the third of four partial solar eclipses this year. The first wowed skywatchers in Europe on Jan. 4, while the second one was visible only in very high latitudes of Siberia, Canada, China and Scandinavia.

The final partial solar eclipse of 2011 will fall on Nov. 25. That eclipse, too, is expected to be visible only from the Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctica, southern South Africa, most of New Zealand and Tasmania.

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