WATCH ONLINE: Total Solar Eclipse
By: Michael C. Fehn
Updated: November 13, 2012
SYDNEY (AP) -- Tens of thousands of tourists, scientists and amateur astronomers are waiting anxiously across tropical northern Australia to find out whether the clouds will part in time for a total eclipse of the sun.
The eclipse will begin just after sunrise Wednesday. But meteorologists are predicting clouds along the coast, which could spoil the view.
The eclipse will cast its 150-kilometer (95-mile) wide shadow starting at dawn in Australia's Northern Territory. It will cross the northeast tip of the country and move across the South Pacific. A partial eclipse will be visible from eastern Indonesia, the eastern half of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and southern parts of Chile and Argentina. Totality -- the darkness that happens at the peak of the eclipse -- will last just over two minutes.
The eclipse, which is set to begin around 2:30 Central Time, will be broadcast online by several agencies. Click here to view.
The eclipse will begin just after sunrise Wednesday. But meteorologists are predicting clouds along the coast, which could spoil the view.
The eclipse will cast its 150-kilometer (95-mile) wide shadow starting at dawn in Australia's Northern Territory. It will cross the northeast tip of the country and move across the South Pacific. A partial eclipse will be visible from eastern Indonesia, the eastern half of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and southern parts of Chile and Argentina. Totality -- the darkness that happens at the peak of the eclipse -- will last just over two minutes.
The eclipse, which is set to begin around 2:30 Central Time, will be broadcast online by several agencies. Click here to view.
