A total solar eclipse occurred on August 12, 1673. A solar eclipse occurs when the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

passes between

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

and the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's

apparent diameter The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular distance describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the visual angle, and in optics, it is ...

is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide.

Description

The eclipse was visible in nearly all of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

(with the exception of a part of what is now southern

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

and southern

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

), southern Europe, parts of the Middle East and other parts of Asia,

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...

, Maldives, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Sumatra and western Java as well as a part of the middle Atlantic and most of the Indian Ocean. It was part of

solar saros 130 Saros cycle series 130 for solar eclipses occurs at the Moon's descending node, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 73 events. All eclipses in this series occurs at the Moon's descending node. This solar saros is linked to Lunar Sa ...

. The umbral portion which was as far as 242 km, it included areas that were 50 miles (90–100 km) south of the islands of

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

and Maio in Cape Verde, Senegambia including the kingdoms of Sine and Saloum, Mali, Songhai (or Songhay), Wadai, Darfur, a part of what is Sudan and the South Sudan and Ethiopia. The greatest occurred at 4.6 N, 40.6 E near the

Dawa River The Dawa River ( so, Webiga Daawa) is found in East Africa, covering an area of, 58,961 km2. It flows through three major countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, with 81% falling into Ethiopian territory. It is known for its complex geologic ...

in Ethiopia not far from the present day border with Kenya at 9:04 UTC (1:04 PM local time) and lasted for over 6 minutes. The eclipse showed up to 40% obscuration in Europe and 75% in Yemen in the Middle East, areas that showed up to 50% obscuration included Spanish controlled Canary Islands Morocco, Ottoman Algeris, Tunis, Libya and Egypt and near Oman and on the other side present-day Gabon, the Congo Basin, Malawi, present-day northern Mozambique and southern Madagascar. On Madagascar, it showed from 40% in the south to nearly 80% obscuration in the north. In Madeira, it showed around 30–35% obscuration, 90–95% obscuration in parts of Cape Verde, around 55% in Socotra, 85–90% in the Mascarene Islands and about 25% in the Chagos Archipelago. Areas that were on the rim of the eclipse included the area of the Azores, France including Brittany, the Alps, Ottoman Moldavia and Armenia, Persia (now Iran), Mysore and Sumatra and very close to Antarctica. The eclipse started at sunrise off Cape Verde, the umbral path went southeast and finished as sunset off the coast of Australia (called ew Holland at the time). The subsolar marking was at Yemen in the area at the time that divided the Ottoman Empire.

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Google interactive maps

Solar eclipse data
{{Solar eclipses 1673 08 12 1673 in science 1673 08 12 August events

Description

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