Earth and Space News: Prince Edward Islands Have Dec. 4 Partial Solar Eclipse Visibility

Summary: South Africa's subantarctic Prince Edward Islands have Dec. 4 partial solar eclipse visibility but lie outside the eclipse's path of totality.

Prince Edward Island (upper) and Marion Island (lower); natural-color image of the Prince Edward Islands acquired May 5, 2009, by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite; NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team and the United States Geological Survey: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

South Africa's subantarctic Prince Edward Islands have Dec. 4, partial solar eclipse visibility but miss the solar event's West Antarctica-favored path of totality.

The Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021, total solar eclipse exclusively favors West Antarctica for its continental path of totality. Oceanically, the path of totality includes the Southern Ocean and the Subantarctic South Atlantic Ocean.

December's solar eclipse widens its path of partiality to cover East, or Greater, Antarctica and to skim the continents of Africa, Asia and South America. Also, southern reaches of the Indian, South Atlantic and South Pacific oceans enjoy varying visibility of the event's partial eclipse component.

The location of South Africa's Prince Edward Islands in the Subantarctic Indian Ocean places South Africa's only overseas possession outside of the December solar eclipse's path of totality but within the solar event's path of partiality. The Prince Edward Islands lie north of Lützow-Holm Bay, northeastern Queen Maud Land (Norwegian: Dronning Maud Land), East Antarctica, and southeast of Cape Town, Western Cape province, southwestern coastal South Africa.

The Prince Edward Islands archipelago comprises two small islands. Prince Edward Island, the smaller island, has geographic coordinates of 46 degrees 38 minutes 39 seconds south latitude, 37 degrees 56 minutes 36 seconds east longitude. Marion Island lies to the south, at 46 degrees 54 minutes 45 seconds south latitude, 37 degrees 44 minutes 37 seconds east longitude.

Special statuses emphasize the two-island archipelago's exclusive use for conservation and research. The archipelago was declared a Special Nature Area via the South African Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act, No. 57 of 2003, which took effect Nov. 1, 2004. On May 22, 2007, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat, known as Convention on Wetlands, designated the Prince Edward Islands as Ramsar site 1688. The international treaty focuses on wetland conservation and sustainability. Since April 9, 2013, the two islands have been recognized as the Prince Edward Islands Marine Protected Area.

The South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP) maintains a biological, cosmological, environmental and meteorological research station on Marion Island. SANAP's station is staffed by the archipelago's only human inhabitants.

Different time zones distinguish the two islands in the Prince Edward Islands archipelago, according to Time and Date website. Prince Edward Island observes South Africa Standard Time (SAST). Marion Island uses East Africa Time (EAT). South Africa Standard Time's UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) offset of UTC+2 places Prince Edward Island time one hour ahead of Marion Island time. East Africa Time's UTC offset is UTC+3, which indicates the time zone is three hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time.

The Saturday, Dec. 4, solar eclipse's partial eclipse begins on Prince Edward Island at 8:15:21 a.m. SAST, according to Time and Date website. The partial eclipse's start time on Marion Island is 9:15:13 a.m. Time and Date notes that the partial eclipse begins with the lunar limb's contact with the solar limb.

Maximum eclipse takes place on Prince Edward Island at 8:57:22 a.m. SAST. This instant when the moon is closest to the sun's center registers 22 seconds later, at 9:57:44 a.m. EAT, on Marion Island.

The Saturday, Dec. 4, total solar eclipse's partial eclipse ends with the lunar limb taking leave of the solar limb. This happens on Prince Edward Island at 9:41:34 a.m. SAST. Marion Island experiences the partial eclipse's end 52 seconds later, at 10:42:26 a.m. EAT.

The partial eclipse component of December's solar eclipse is the only one of 2021's four eclipses that offers visibility to the Prince Edward Islands archipelago. The year's first solar eclipse, occurring Thursday, June 10, focused on Earth's Northern Hemisphere. The year's two lunar eclipses, taking place Wednesday, May 26, and Friday, Nov. 19, excluded Africa.

Next year, 2022, again will make available only one of the year's four eclipses to the Prince Edward Islands archipelago. Of the year's two lunar and two solar eclipses, only the total lunar eclipse on Monday, May 16, 2022, will be visible on the archipelago.

The previous year, 2020, however, provided the Prince Edward Islands archipelago with visibility of four of the year's six eclipses. The archipelago missed the year's first solar eclipse, Monday, June 21, and third penumbral lunar eclipse, Sunday, July 5. The archipelago, however, qualified for visibility of the year's first two (Friday, Jan. 10; Friday, June 5) and fourth (Monday, Nov. 30) penumbral lunar eclipses and also of the year's second solar eclipse (Monday, Dec. 14).

The takeaways for Prince Edward Islands archipelago's having Dec. 4 partial solar eclipse visibility are that the archipelago's two islands observe different time zones; that Prince Edward Island, to the north, is one hour ahead via South Africa Standard Time while Marion Island follows East Africa Time; and that the archipelago's next eclipse visibility will occur with the second of 2022's four eclipses, the total lunar eclipse of Monday, May 16, 2022.

Map of the Prince Edward Islands shows the archipelago's highest elevation, 1,230-meter (4,040-foot) State President Swart Peak (now Mascarin Peak) on Marion Island: varp, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

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Earth and Space News

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Prince Edward Islands Have Dec. 4 Partial Solar Eclipse Visibility

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