Explanation:
What's rising above the horizon behind those clouds?
It's the Sun.
Most sunrises don't look like this, though, because most sunrises don't include the
Moon.
In the early morning of 2013 May 10, however, from
Western
Australia,
the Moon was between the Earth and the rising
Sun.
At times, it would be hard for the
uninformed to understand what was happening.
In an annular eclipse, the Moon is too far from the
Earth to block
the entire Sun,
and at most leaves a
ring of fire
where sunlight pours out around every edge of the Moon.
The featured time-lapse video
also recorded the eclipse through the high refraction of the Earth's atmosphere just
above the horizon, making the
unusual rising Sun and Moon appear also
flattened.
As the video continues on, the Sun continues to rise, and the Sun and Moon begin
to separate.
This weekend, a new
annular solar eclipse
will occur, visible from central Africa, the
Arabian Peninsula,
and a narrow band across Asia, with much of
Earth's Eastern hemisphere
being able to see a
partial solar eclipse.
