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Total solar eclipse sweeps across Indonesia

Other parts of Southeast Asia witnessed substantial partial eclipses.

A crowd of about 400 people, including students and families, gathered at a university sports field in Singapore to watch the eclipse, while groups of enthusiasts also converged on beaches and outside their highrise apartments to gaze upwards.

In the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, 1,000 school students witnessed the eclipse at the national planetarium.

Meanwhile, in the Philippine capital Manila, dozens of people carrying telescopes jostled for space on the roof deck of the country’s only space observatory.

“People were howling with excitement. For many of them, it’s their first time to see a solar eclipse,” said Philippine state astronomer Allan Alcaraz.

A partial eclipse was also visible in northern Australia, with a handful of astronomy enthusiasts watching the event in Darwin.

The total eclipse swept across 12 out of 34 provinces in Indonesia, which stretches about 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometres) from east to west, before heading across the Pacific.

It passed over the major islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi, before sweeping over the Malukus and out into the ocean.

The last total solar eclipse occurred on March 20, 2015, and was only visible from the Faroe Islands and Norway’s Arctic Svalbard archipelago.

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Total eclipses occur when the moon moves between the Earth and the Sun, and the three bodies align precisely.
As seen from Earth, the moon is just broad enough to cover the solar face, creating a breath-taking silver halo in an indigo sky.

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