Nature Annular Magnitude 0.9176 Max. width of band 346 km (215 mi) Start date December 14, 1955 | Gamma 0.4266 Duration 729 sec (12 m 9 s) Greatest eclipse 7:02:25 | |
 | ||
An annular solar eclipse occurred on December 14, 1955. 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.
Contents
Extreme Duration
With a maximum length of annularity duration of 12 minutes and 9 seconds, this is the longest solar eclipse in the millennium, also the longest duration in Saros 141, one of the longest eclipse that ever happened. The annular path begins in northern Africa,then passing Maldives (near the maximum eclipse), then crosses just southern edge of Sri Lanka, then the track continues to some countries in Indochina and the track ends just slightly after the track passes Taiwan.
Solar eclipses of 1953-1956
Each member in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.
Note: Partial solar eclipse of February 14, 1953 and August 9, 1953 belong to the last lunar year set.
Saros 141
Solar Saros 141 repeats every 18 years, 11 days and contains 70 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on May 19, 1613. It contains annular eclipses from August 4, 1739 through October 14, 2460. There are no total eclipses in this series. The series ends at member 70 as a partial eclipse on June 13, 2857.