We will never, ever tell you to stare at the sun. Fortunately, we have a far better way for you to get a glimpse of the upcoming ring-of-fire solar eclipse.
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, temporarily blocking out its light. A ring-of-fire eclipse is, more prosaically, also just called an annular eclipse, to distinguish it from a total eclipse of the sun. As the name suggests, during a total eclipse the path of the moon totally covers the sun during its peak, like so:
During an annular eclipse—although the moon blocks out most of the sun—the moon’s path lets a bit of sun stay visible through the whole thing. That means that, during the peak, it looks like someone had punched straight through the sun’s center with a cookie cutter, leaving only the outer ring behind.
To see the annular eclipse, make a solar viewer as illustrated above.
To use your viewer, point the pinhole end of the box right at the sun. To aim it, move it around until you see a round spot of light on the paper at the other end—that’s your pinhole image of the sun!
If you have trouble aiming your viewer, look at the shadow of the box on the ground. Move it until the shadow is as small as possible—that is, until it looks like the end of the box, and the sides are not casting a shadow. Do not look through the pinhole at the sun! Look only at the image on the paper. (Naij)
Please don’t stare directly into the Sun directly!! Staring directly at the sun can lead to retina burn, which can lead to permanent blindness!!
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