An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Saturday, April 29, 1995,[1] with a magnitude of 0.9497. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring about 3.5 days before apogee (on May 3, 1995, at 1:50 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was smaller.[2]
Annularity was visible in Peru, southeastern Ecuador, southeastern Colombia and Brazil. A partial eclipse was visible for parts of South America, Mexico, Central America, Florida, the Caribbean, and West Africa.
A team of NASA's Johnson Space Center observed the annular eclipse near Puinahua District in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. The weather was clear and the observations were successful.[3]
See also: Eclipse cycle. This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight.
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