2012 Total Solar Eclipse in Northern Australia

Here are two pictures of total solar eclipse that happened in Northern Australia yesterday. The first one from this FOX News article:

And the next one from the space.com Credit NASA/SDO:

Some relevant info. from the FOX News article:

The moon blocked out the sun in a total solar eclipse Tues, briefly turning dawn back into night over parts of northern Australia and the southern Pacific Ocean.

The total solar eclipse began just after sunrise local time Wednesday (Nov. 14) in northern Australia, thrilling nearly 50,000 spectators who had flocked to the tropical city of Cairns to witness the event. It was the first total solar eclipse in Australia in a decade and the last eclipse of its kind that humans will see until 2015.

Because of time zone differences, it was still Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 13) in the United States during the celestial event. The totality phase of the eclipse — the point at which the moon completely blocks the sun — began at 3:35 p.m. EST over the Arnhem Land region in Australia's Northern Territory.

The moon's shadow swept southeast from there, crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria into the state of Queensland before heading out into the vast Pacific Ocean, where few could witness it.

Solar eclipses occur when the moon lines up with the sun in the sky, blotting out the solar disk from a viewer's perspective on Earth. There are three main categories: total, partial and annular (in which the outer edge of the sun shines like a ring around the moon in the sky). 

The last total solar eclipse as viewed from Earth took place in July 2010, and the next one won't occur until March 2015.

From start to finish, the "total" phase of the solar eclipse lasted about three hours. At Cairns on the northeast Queensland coast, enthusiastic observers saw the moon cover the sun's disk completely for two minutes, beginning at 3:39 p.m. EST.

 Without actually to go there, it is still an exciting moment to be able to see it online at home!