Published: Less than 30 min ago
Up to 20,000 people gathered during the night of Thursday in the small town of Exmouth in Western Australia to see a so-called hybrid solar eclipse.
The phenomenon had attracted a large number of enthusiasts from all over the world, who camped at the site for several days.
– This is so fantastic! It was so sharp – you could see the ring around the sun, said Nasa astronomer Henry Throop, who traveled to Exmouth from the US.
When some parts of the Earth’s population see a thin ring of sun while the sky elsewhere is shrouded in total darkness, it is called a hybrid solar eclipse.
The phenomenon only happens a few times over a hundred-year period.
The hybrid solar eclipse was visible in parts of Australia, East Timor and Indonesia, as well as in parts of New Zealand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea.