An annular solar eclipse will occur at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Tuesday, January 5, 2038, with a magnitude of 0.9728. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. The Moon's apparent diameter will be near the average diameter because it will occur 6.8 days after perigee (on December 29, 2037, at 18:50 UTC) and 7 days before apogee (on January 12, 2038, at 14:00 UTC).
Annularity will be visible from parts of Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, northwestern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, southeastern Libya, northwestern Sudan, and southwestern Egypt. A partial eclipse will be visible for parts of eastern North America, Central America, the Caribbean, northern South America, Europe, and the northern two-thirds of Africa.
<br />Animated path
Shown below are two tables displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. The first table outlines times at which the Moon's penumbra or umbra attains the specific parameter, and the second table describes various other parameters pertaining to this eclipse.
This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight.