'Awesome' Solar Eclipse Thrills Spectators in Remote Australian Town: 'It Was Mind-Blowing'
More than 20,000 people gathered in Exmouth in Western Australia for the best view of the rare solar eclipse
Thousands of people flocked to a remote Australian town on Thursday to watch a solar eclipse.
More than 20,000 people traveled to Exmouth in Western Australia for the best view of the rare moment, according to NBC News.
The sky over the town, which has fewer than 3,000 residents, was plunged into darkness for about 62 seconds on Thursday morning when the Moon cast a 40km-wide shadow over the area, according to BBC News.
The outlet reports that the total solar eclipse was part of a rare hybrid eclipse, which only occurs a handful of times every 100 years.
In footage shared on Sky News, the crowds, who had been gathering for days in the town and camped out in tents and trailers, could be heard cheering as the sky went dark.
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Among those lucky enough to view the eclipse was NASA astronomer Henry Throop, who called the occasion "awesome."
"Isn't it incredible? This is so fantastic. It was mind-blowing. It was so sharp and it was so bright. You could see the corona [outside surface of the sun] around the sun there," Throop, who lives in Washington, said, according to NBC News.
"It's only a minute long, but it really felt like a long time. There's nothing else you can see which looks like that. It was just awesome. Spectacular. And then you could see Jupiter and Mercury and to be able to see those at the same time during the day — even seeing Mercury at all is pretty rare. So that was just awesome," he added.
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Julie Copson, who traveled more than 600 miles to Exmouth from the city of Fremantle on the west coast, said viewing her first eclipse left her "emotional."
"I feel so emotional, like I could cry. The color changed and seeing the corona and sun flares," she said according to NBC News. "It was very strong and the temperature dropped so much," she added. Per the outlet, the temperature fell 9 degrees Fahrenheit to 75 degrees Fahrenheit when the eclipse happened.
Meanwhile, Australian astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker described the solar eclipse as "such a surreal" experience on Sky News. "You can understand why people travel far to go to these things, it's not that common across the world, it's even rarer at any given location."
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This was the first solar eclipse in Western Australia since 1974, according to Sky News.
As well as Western Australia, people in Timor-Leste and West Papua had the best views of the eclipse, according to BBC News. But the outlet reports that only people on the Exmouth Peninsula, which is 1,200 km north of Perth, could experience the total solar eclipse, which happened at 11:27 a.m. local time.
The last hybrid solar eclipse was in 2013, and Nasa expects the next one to happen in 2031, according to NBC News.
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