• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Archives

The Fox Gazette

Informative and Entertaining News

  • Australia
  • World
    • Africa
    • Americas
    • Asia Pacific
    • Europe
    • Middle East
  • Science
    • Evolution
    • Space & Cosmos
  • Environment
    • Conservation
    • Wildlife
Home » Science » Total Solar Eclipse Plunges South Pacific into Darkness

Total Solar Eclipse Plunges South Pacific into Darkness

July 12, 2010 by Andy T Leave a Comment

Total solar eclipse

A spectacularly rare solar eclipse has projected an 11,000 kilometre arc over the Pacific, thrusting the mysterious Easter Island into near total darkness.

At precisely 4:15am AEST, approximately 700 kilometres south-east of Tonga, the lunar umbra (moon’s shadow) completely covered the sun before continuing in an arc towards the east, climaxing at Easter Island at 6:11 AEST.

The culmination was witnessed by around 4000 flabbergasted tourists, scientists, photographers, filmmakers and journalists, who ventured to the 160 square kilometre sacred island for the event.

The unique 41 second eclipse appeared to have quite an effect on its onlookers. In Tahiti, hordes of world cup football fans were allegedly stupefied, unable to continue with their arm chair activity.

In Patagonia, hundreds of animated onlookers were spotted dancing the morning away to the event’s final moments (6:52 AEST) in the small town of El Calafate, just across the border from southern Chile in the snow-capped Argentine Andes.

Patricia Vargas, from the University of Chile, has said the ancients would have seen the event as an eminently important upheaval of everything they knew, as their whole world revolved around the earth, sea and “especially the sky”.

A few Easter Island visitors, it seemed, were also kerfuffled by the phenomenon, as a French and Japanese tourist were arrested and charged for “over excitable” activities involving the illicit mounting of rare Easter Island statues.

Cassandra Spatula, from the Compassionate Archaeological Statue Society (CASS), is concerned over the lack of tenderness shown towards the objects during the event, saying “the whole thing is really a metaphor for society’s inevitable descent into utter darkness, which all begins with the statue”.

RELATED POSTS

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Email

Filed Under: Science, Space & Cosmos Tagged With: Easter Island, eclipse

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Welcome to The Fox Gazette, where the pent-up fox and friends put on their sarsaparilla wetsuits and dive into the colourful crevices of world news. Find out more here.

Popular Posts

Research on AIDS Leaves Cats Glowing Green

Butter-Lovers Bemoan as Denmark Unveils ‘The Fat Tax’

Asian Hornets Cooked Alive by Bittersweet Honeybees

Indonesian Pilots Fly Sky-High on Crystal Meth

Urine Therapy – A Collection of Golden Tales

The Children of Technology – A New Species

Parasitic Fungus Possesses Ants For 48-Million-Years

Despair in The Land of The Immortals

Amazon Secrets Discovered Beneath ‘The Black River’

Hundreds of Endangered Animal Species Found in Luggage

Let’s connect

  • Twitter

Evolution

Scientists Reveal Ancient Mammoth Blood Secret

Space & Cosmos

Sniffing For Life on Mars

Conservation

Will Human Population Growth Cause An Extinction?

Wildlife

Freak Thunderbolt Kills Over 300 Reindeer in Norway

recent posts

  • Freak Thunderbolt Kills Over 300 Reindeer in Norway
  • Inky the Octopus Legs it From Aquarium
About | Contact | Copyright © 2010–2023 The Fox Gazette. All rights reserved.