Total solar eclipse and asteroid flyby on Tuesday

Tuesday seems to be a double-header for cosmic events: A total solar eclipse will shadow Indonesia and the North Pacific Ocean, and a 100-foot-wide (30m) asteroid will streak past Earth.

The total solar eclipse of March 2016 is the only total eclipse of the sun of the year. The last one occurred in March 2015 and this time around the moon’s shadow will travel across the Earth late Tuesday (March 8), for the Pacific, and early Wednesday (March 9) in Indonesia.

About 10,000 foreign visitors and 100,000 Indonesian tourists are expected to view the spectacle, and special events have been organised across the country, from a festival featuring live bands to dragon boat races. For many in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, the experience will be deeply spiritual, with Islamic leaders urging the faithful to perform special eclipse prayers. “Our Prophet Mohammed said the prayer signifies the greatness of Allah, who created this wonderful phenomenon,” said Ma’ruf Amin, chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top Islamic clerical body.

Watching the eclipse

Strangely, because of the international dateline, this actually happens in the opposite order — it starts off over Indonesia and travels eastward across the Pacific Ocean; it will be Tuesday for about the last third of its journey.

So while its timing is firm, you’ll need to check a list to tell when exactly to look out for a full or partial eclipse.

Do not look directly at the sun with the naked eye or a telescope – you can use special eclipse-viewing glasses or build a pinhole projector.

The asteroid’s arrival is uncertain in a different way: researchers originally thought the asteroid flyby would be Saturday (March 5), but updated their prediction in late February. The asteroid should pass by about 3 million miles (5 million kilometres) from Earth, but there’s a possibility it will approach as close as 15,000 miles (24,000 km), NASA officials said in a statement.

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

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. For many astronomers it is the ultimate experience.