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Partial Solar Eclipse on September 21, 2025 – Where to See It
On September 21, 2025, on the eve of the autumnal equinox, a partial solar eclipse will occur. This astronomical event is a rare phenomenon that will only be visible from certain regions of the world and will be observed by only a few hundred thousand people.
Solar Eclipse: What It Is and How Many Types There Are The Sun, the central star of the Solar System, plays an essential role in maintaining life on Earth, providing indispensable heat and light. The movement of the Moon around the Earth and our planet around the Sun creates the necessary conditions for the occurrence of solar and lunar eclipses. A solar eclipse only occurs during the New Moon phase, that is, when the Moon comes between the Earth and the Sun, partially or completely blocking sunlight for observers on Earth, according to Planetary.org.
The phenomenon depends on the exact alignment of the three celestial bodies and the distances between them. Solar eclipses are divided into four categories: partial, annular, hybrid and total. Each year, the Earth can witness two to five such events, each of which has its own characteristics and visibility conditions. Although, as we said, between two and five such events can occur in a year, only two of the eclipses can be total.
If the Moon’s shadow does not reach the center of the Earth, we are dealing with an off-center eclipse. Each solar eclipse can only be observed from certain regions of the globe, and the band where the total solar eclipse is visible usually does not exceed 200 kilometers wide, which makes these phenomena relatively rare.
Although the Moon is almost four times smaller than the Sun, due to the distance from the Earth of approximately 385,000 kilometers, both celestial bodies appear to have similar sizes in the sky. It is precisely this optical illusion that makes total eclipses possible. What is a partial solar eclipse? The term partial solar eclipse refers to this astronomical phenomenon that occurs when the Moon fails to completely cover the solar disk, due to the imperfect alignment of the three celestial bodies. In these situations, part of the Sun is visible, and the degree of coverage differs depending on the position of the observer and the astronomical conditions.
Sometimes, the Moon covers most of the Sun, so the partial eclipse resembles a total one. The size of the area covered is called the magnitude of the eclipse, we learn from the TimeandDate.com website. The phenomenon can usually be observed from an extended area of the globe, especially in regions outside the band of totality.
In over 15 years, Romanians have been able to see six partial solar eclipses out of a total of ten that occurred worldwide during this period. The most recent partial solar eclipse took place on October 25, 2022 and had a different duration depending on the region. For example, in northwest Romania it lasted two hours and 18 minutes, in the northeast – two hours and 26 minutes, and in Bucharest it lasted two hours and 21 minutes.
Source: libertatea.ro
