Anyone else suddenly craving Jaffa Cakes?
We hardly get enough of the sun in Ireland to get excited about it being hidden away, but we’ll make an exception for a very rare event next month.
On March 20, over 90 per cent of the sun will be blocked by a solar eclipse and Ireland and many other countries will be plunged into darkness for a period on that Friday morning.
If events in the sky are really your bag, you can hotfoot it to the Faroe Islands or Svalbard in Norway, where a total eclipse of the sun will occur, but the rest of Europe as well as parts of North and West Africa and North and East Asia will still get a pretty good view.
At this point it’s important to stress that you shouldn’t go gazing at the sun directly as you could well, you know, go blind; making your own pinhole projector is the safest and most convenient way to grab a glimpse.
The eclipse is due to begin in these parts at 8.24am on Friday, March 20, with the maximum point of the eclipse taking place around the 9.30am mark.
It’ll all be over before 10.40am so you should really make an extra effort to get out of the scratcher that morning, even if you have extended the Paddy’s Day celebrations by a few days.
A simulation of what the eclipse will look like from Dublin – providing there’s a clear sky, which, of course, is far from certain – can be viewed below and we’re looking forward to seeing the real thing in a few weeks’ time.
Hat-tip: Irish Mirror
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