The century's most dramatic solar eclipse will be visible along a narrow swath of Asia and the Pacific Ocean later today. And, thanks to some University of North Dakota researchers, it'll be visible on the internet, too. The live webcast begins at 5:15 p.m. Pacific time.

The eclipse will last six minutes and 39 seconds, which is near the theoretical maximum duration for a solar eclipse of seven minutes and 31 seconds. For everyone except Ray Kurzweil and the other singulatarians, this will be the longest eclipse of our lifetimes. The Earth won't see an eclipse this long until June 13, 2132.

If you're lucky enough to be near the path of the eclipse, check out our guide to the experience, How to See 93 Million Miles. Or perhaps use it to start planning a trip for next July to the Cook Islands or French Polynesia, where you'll be able to see the next total solar eclipse on July 11, 2010.

NASA has created the definitive guide to the event's science, including this excellent tip about the latest in protective eyewear for solar eclipse viewing:

"More recently, solar observers have used floppy disks and compact disks (CDs and CD-ROMs) as protective filters by covering the central openings and looking through the disk media," write Fred Espenak and Jay Anderson of NASA. "However, the optical quality of the solar image formed by a floppy disk or CD is relatively poor compared to aluminized polyester or welder’s glass."

We'll be curating a gallery of eclipse photos from the internet, so if you take some, send them our way: brandon[at]earthlab.net.

See Also:

Image: NASA.

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