A partial solar eclipse was visible last Friday 15th of January in Phuket before any other province in Thailand.
The entire event lasted three hours and 34 minutes.
Because Phuket is the most westerly province of Thailand, the phenomenon was visible here before any other part of the country.
The full ‘annular’ eclipse, the first anywhere in the world in 2010, casted a 300km-wide track across parts of Asia.

Annular eclipses occur when the sun and moon are perfectly aligned, but the size of the moon appears smaller than the sun and a bright ring forms around the periphery.

The shadow first became visible in Africa, its track then travelled east across the Indian Ocean to the southern part of India.
It then passed through Bangladesh and Burma, ending in China.

The world’s next solar eclipse, on July 11th, will not be visible in Thailand.