Why people pray during a solar eclipse ?

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Why people pray during a solar eclipse ?

people usually try to avoid looking at the sun directly, while many worshippers believe this is the time to pray for a better and secure future.

Professor of the Institute of Space and Planetary Astrophysics, University of Karachi, Muhammad Shahid Qureshi, told Daily Times that the myths surrounding the solar eclipse of people losing their sight by looking straight into the sun, weren’t totally correct.

“All the myths are not entirely true. They are conservative thoughts and there is no scientific evidence that supports them,” Qureishi said. Qureshi also said that at the time of a solar eclipse, the sun and the moon change their dimensions, crossing each other. “The crossing-over is so close, that you would think that both stars would collide. In case of a collision, the Earth would be destroyed. This is why people pray,” Qureshi said.

“There are many astrologers who believe that looking at the sun during an eclipse can have a fatal impact, one being the loss of eyesight. But this is all rubbish.”

“Yes, looking at the sun will burn your eyes on this day. But it will not blind you. In fact, the impact will be lesser, than on a normal day when the rays of the sun are stronger. On eclipse days, the rays of the sun diminish, which is why the scorching effect is lower than a normal day,” he added.

Astrologists have always predicted many environmental and socio-political and anthropological changes during the solar eclipse. “There is always a chance of a natural calamity, either religious of scientific or even political. Our religion also talks of the consequences that are always possible during a solar eclipse.

The eclipse would remain for an hour and 26 minutes. Qureshi also said that the world could experience a total of five solar eclipses in one year.

“This year there will only be two. One is on Wednesday, and the other will be in September. We will be able to see 24 percent of the eclipse, while the one in September will not be visible to us. It will be visible in Europe,” he said.

Astronomer Muhammad Hashim Zaidi said the changing patterns of the stars was not magic and rather an arithmetical way of calculations. Making predictions with stars according to the local jantry system is another form of astrological calculation. Many families use the jantry system to determine the future outcome of their finances and even marriage. “The jantry culture has been associated with Hindu mythology. All religions have their own methods of calculations and predictions,”
Muhammad Hashim Zaidi said.

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Nice Infomative Post. :)

+ve for you captain

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NDTV Correspondent

Wednesday, March 29, 2006 (New Delhi):


North and northwest India will witness a partial solar eclipse on Wednesday. The eclipse will begin around 4.30 pm (IST) and end after 6 pm.

The maximum eclipse (31.3 per cent) will be seen in Jammu, where it will begin at 4.23 pm (IST) and end at 6.08 pm.

Chandigarh will see a 23.4 per cent eclipse, Delhi will see 17 per cent, while Bhopal will see 10.6 per cent of it.

A full eclipse will be visible in countries like Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Chad, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Kazakhastan, Russia and Mongolia.

The best viewing location for the eclipse is expected to be in Libya, which has issued special tourist visas for the event.

Necessary precautions Eclipse precautions

Don't look at the Sun directly
Don't use binoculars, sunglasses
Don't see the Sun through cameras



Experts warn that viewing an eclipse with the naked eye can be harmful, and even blinding.

"During an eclipse the pupil in eyes would dilate because the Sun's light is reduced, so the eye is less protected," said Dr Rathnashree, Director, Nehru Planetarium.

Binoculars or ordinary sunglasses too cannot block the harmful infrared and ultraviolet rays, and people are advised to use certified filters instead.

Ordinary kitchen sieves can also be used to view an eclipse. Another simple means for viewing the spectacle is to hold a piece of cardboard with a pinhole against the Sunlight, and project the Sun's image through the hole onto a white paper.

Myths and facts

A solar eclipse is often associated with superstitions, and some believe that pregnant women should stay indoors while it is visible.

However, there is no scientific evidence to support such beliefs.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon comes between the Earth and the Sun, and its shadow crosses over the Sun.

But the natural spectacle is often considered inauspicious, and many people chose to visit religious places to pray and purify themselves at the time of an eclipse.



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World prepares for rare solar eclipse

Accra, Ghana - Tourists and scientists were gathering at spots around the world for a rare solar show - the first total eclipse in years, which will sweep north-east from Brazil to Mongolia, blotting out the sun across swathes of the world's poorest lands.

The last such eclipse in November 2003 was best viewed from Antarctica, "so it wasn't the easiest eclipse to see", said Alex Young, a Nasa scientist involved in solar research.

Wednesday's eclipse will block the sun in highly populated areas, including West Africa, where governments scrambled to educate people about the dangers of looking at the eclipse without proper eye protection.

In Togo, authorities imported hundreds of thousands of pairs of special glasses that consumers cleared rapidly from shelves in the capital, Lome. But villagers in the interior won't have access to the eyewear and officials called on them to stay home.

"Please, do not go out and keep your children indoors on solar eclipse day," Togo's minister for health said in a message broadcast on state television.

Day will turn to night in the eclipse's route and a corona - the usually invisible extended atmosphere of the sun - will glow around the edges of the moon as it comes between Earth and the sun.

"Imagine if your hair was to stand up from static electricity, that's kind of what the corona looks like all around the sun," Nasa's Young said. But the corona's light can burn eyes.

In Ghana, where the effect will be particularly visible, people were spending about $1 for "solar shades" - paper-rimmed glasses with dark plastic lenses that resemble eyewear used for viewing three-dimensional movies.

Crowds were anticipated in prime viewing points, among them Accra, the capital of Ghana, and in Turkey and India. In Ghana, the University of Cape Coast will broadcast the eclipse simultaneously on the Internet.

Nasa said Turkey will be the best spot to view the eclipse, and tens of thousands of tourists were expected along the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Astronomers from Nasa and Britain's Royal Institute of Astronomy also were going to an ancient Roman amphitheatre in Turkey to view the phenomenon.

The moon is expected to first begin blocking out the sun in the morning in Brazil before the path of greatest blockage migrates to Africa, then on to Turkey and up into Mongolia, where it will fade out with the sunset.

The moon's voyage across the sun will last between five and 10 minutes, Young said, though the sun will only be completely blackened for a few seconds. That's longer than most eclipses, which only last a minute or two, according to a Nasa statement.

Superstition will follow around the world, as it has for generations.

One Indian paper advised pregnant women not to go outside during the eclipse to avoid having a blind baby or one with a cleft lip. Food cooked before the eclipse should be thrown out afterwards because it will be impure and those who are holding a knife or axe during the eclipse will cut themselves, the Hindustan Times added.

Total eclipses are rare because they require the tilted orbits of the sun, moon and Earth to line up exactly so that the moon obscures the sun completely. The next total eclipse will occur in 2008. - Sapa-AP

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Total solar eclipse

Lalithasai




CHENNAI: A total solar eclipse will occur on March 29. The moon's shadow will sweep across a narrow corridor traversing half the earth. Along the track of this shadow will be a total eclipse. Generally, the path of totality is over 12,000 km long.

According to P. Iyamperumal, Executive Director, Birla Planetarium, Chennai, the eclipse will only be partial in India and that too only in the northern States. It will be visible in Jaipur, Hardwar, New Delhi, Amritsar, Allahabad and Bhopal from 5.15 p.m. to 6.04 p.m. By this time the eclipse is almost over. Being summer, spectators may be able to catch a glimpse of the eclipsed sun.

"In New Delhi, we can witness about 17.4 per cent of the sun covered by the Moon, whereas in places of the southern limits of the penumbra, like Nagpur and Nasik, less than one per cent of the sun will be covered. The eclipse will not be visible in Tamil Nadu," he said.

This time, the path of the darker shadow of the moon called the umbra will pass through Brazil, Atlantic Ocean, Northern Africa and central Asia, Mr. Iyamperumal said. These areas fall under a very narrow band having a width of not more than 300 km. People in these regions will feel the sun completely obscured by the moon.

Globally, the eclipse begins at 13.07 hours (IST) and ends at 18.15 hours (IST).

These partial eclipses are seen in the much broader path of the moon's penumbral shadow. This region will be about 7,000 km wide. According to the director, the solar eclipse belongs to the 139 Saros series. A saros series is one in which similar eclipses happens every 18 years 11.3 days. Solar eclipses occur only on new moon days when the moon passes between the earth and the sun.