A blazing “ring of fire” appeared in the frozen sky above Antarctica during the annular solar eclipse of February 17, 2026. This spectacle was witnessed by only a handful of people on Earth.
What is it?
An annular solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly in front the sun while it is located slightly further away due to its slightly elliptical orbit around the Earth. As a result, it does not completely cover the solar disk as it would during totality solar eclipse. Instead, a thin ring of sunlight remains visible all around the moon‘s silhouette, a glowing ‘ring of fire’.
This particular eclipse was visible to very few people. The narrow path of annularity crossed only a small part of Antarctica, and placed crew at the Concordia Research Station among the lucky few who could see the full effect from the icy plateau.
Top annularity occurred at 7:47 p.m. local time (6:47 a.m. EST / 1247 GMT) and lasted only two minutes, although the marginal eclipse—including the partial phases—lasted about two hours.
Why is it amazing?
Located over 680 miles (1,100 kilometers) inland at an elevation of nearly 10,500 feet (3,200 meters), Concordia is one of the most isolated research stations on the planet. In the summer the sun barely dips below the horizon, and in the winter it disappears completely for months as temperatures drop to -112 degrees Fahrenheit (-80 degrees Celsius).
While spacecraft like Proba-2 caught a glimpse of the eclipse from orbit, this ground-based view from Antarctica is among the rarest perspectives of all. A unique view, for the very few, at the bottom of the world.
