Total Solar Eclipse Images From Around The World (PHOTOS)

UPDATE: For information about the July 22nd solar eclipse, click here.

Finally, China had an act of nature it could celebrate. After an Olympic year of freakish natural disasters, crowds of Chinese watched a total solar eclipse along the country's ancient Silk Road on Friday, one week before the start of the Summer Games in Beijing.

It was a welcome respite after a 2008 that began with heavy snowstorms at the Chinese New Year, followed by China's deadliest earthquake in a generation, then river flooding -- and even a huge algae bloom at the Olympic sailing site. Online, some Chinese murmured about curses.

Below are images of the eclipse from around the world:

Graphic showing the path of the solar eclipse. Thousands of people gathered across Arctic regions, Siberia and China to see a total eclipse of the sun, despite Chinese warnings that it could augur bad luck.(AFP Graphic)

A man and his camel walk past as the sun is blocked by the moon during a solar eclipse in Gaotai, Gansu province August 1, 2008. (Aly Song/Reuters)

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, the total solar eclipse is observed at 7:21 pm (1121 GMT) on Friday, Aug. 1, 2008 in north of Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. The total solar eclipse, the first that can be viewed in China in the new century, occured on Friday.(AP Photo/Xinhua, Ding Haitao)

A man using a special filter observes a partial solar eclipse in Riga, August 1, 2008.
(Ints Kalnins/Reuters)

Partial solar eclipse is seen against a crescent of Islamabad's grand Faisal mosque in Pakistan on Aug 1, 2008. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

Maria Shciskina wearing solar glasses, watches the partial eclipse of the sun visible in Kaivopuisto Park, Helsinki, Friday, Aug. 1, 2008. (AP Photo/Martti Kainulainen/Lehtikuva)

A woman shows the reflection of an image of the partial solar eclipse at a planetarium in Gauhati, India, Friday, Aug. 1, 2008. The event was seen as a total eclipse in Arctic Canada, then passed through Greenland, western Siberia, Mongolia and China. People have been recording solar eclipses for perhaps 4,000 years, and they typically inspire a combination of dread, fascination and awe. According to NASA, the next total eclipse will occur July 22, 2009, starting in India and moving across Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, China and over the Pacific Ocean.
(AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

Comments

[metallica1025]

Beautiful pictures! :)

[Raymondf]

I don't understand all the hoop-la on Lunar or solar eclipse. It's no big deal.

[JJThinking]

Beautiful photos! I love the one with the camel, but the picture of the mosque in Pakistan is amazing considering the echoed imagery.

[MagisterLudi]

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
Beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All thats to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

[ShootFirstInc]

There is no dark side of the moon. Matter of fact, it's all dark.

(I was really quite drunk at the time.)

[Mort]

The strangest thing happened today. A big dark cloud of hot gas belched out of the capitol building and blotted out the sun. If that's a sign that the four horsemen are coming, armageddon outa here!

[noneIn2008]

Still no cycle 24 sunspots. Think Maunder minimum and buy clothing for the cold.

[blastocyst]

I made the Sun disappear. Now be good, or else!

[Sciguy]

Wow. The pic of the camel and the eclipse brought tears to my eyes.

[samuelpablo]

Cower under my solar eclipse powers!

[mbaty]

No wonder they inspire awe, dread, and fascination. The energy was incredible. Even on the dark side of the world.

[Dave24]

Another example of science substituting for superstition. Eventually, age-old questions about the universe will be answered by natural explanation, rather than some mythical father figure who judges us.

[70sFez]

I agree.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of religion and superstition.

[kas70]

I don't believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive.

[realityczech4u]

Many people now worship science and in that sense it has become a religion for them.

[sector1463]

WOW. When is the next one to be in the US? It has been a long long time for those of us in the Washington, DC area.

[UnbiasView]

If we don't stop driving SUVs these eclipses are going to happen on a daily basis and the world will end.

Go Green!

[OutsourcedAgain]

They won't end, we just won't be able to see them. So we won't notice.

[Moxo]

How soon before John McCain conjoins Barak Obama and the evil that is supposed to happen whenever an eclipse occurs??

I can hear McCain intoning, "The Rise of Barak Hussein Obama brought about an Eclipse that hid the sun from the eyes of the multitudes, striking terror across the earth".

[MagisterLudi]

Yo, dude get your obsessive a$$ back to a political thread.

[Marichu]

The photographs of the solar eclipse were beautiful.