Partial solar eclipse visible in Mindanao on March 9

A large swath of Southeast Asia is in for a spectacle on March 9, with a solar eclipse visible throughout most of the region.

Sadly, the Philippines won't be able to take in the full event, but skywatchers in Mindanao will be able to see a partial eclipse.

Just be sure not to look directly at the sun and to use safe viewing tools.

The partial eclipse will be visible in Mindanao from 7:51 a.m. to 10:14 a.m. The sky will darken slightly as a portion of the sun will be blocked by the moon. The eclipse will be at its peak at 8:58 a.m.

As seen in the NASA video below, a full solar eclipse is visible in those places that fall under the "umbra"—the darkest portion of the moon's shadow, where all the light of the sun will be blocked out. The places within the umbra's path include Sumatra, southern Borneo, and Sulawesi in Indonesia.

But Mindanao and the rest of Indonesia fall under the moon's "penumbra", a partial shadow formed because the sun is not completely covered.

"The sun is 400 times wider than the moon, but it is also a little more than 400 times farther from Earth than the moon during total solar eclipses, so to our eyes they appear the same size in the sky. This means the moon can block the entirety of the sun’s face while obscuring only a tiny portion of the inner corona," NASA explains.  — GMA News