The moon passed between the Earth and sun for several minutes yesterday, causing a spectacular total solar eclipse. Rather than sacrificing astrologers or going to war, people uploaded their photos to Flickr.

Sure, a few pessimistic sign-readers predicted natural disasters and terrorist attacks. But even the most hardened criminals were probably too busy shading their eyes and sharing a neighborly moment to cause trouble.

The pictures and video that floated out of Asia on Tuesday drive home a simple truth: wherever we're from, whatever we do, however removed from the natural world we might be, having the moon cover the sun is just freaking awesome.

The next total solar eclipse will be on July 11, 2010. It'll be visible from the South Pacific, reaching land in the Cook Islands, Easter Island, and a small section of southern Chile and Argentina.

Below is a small sampling of the flood of eclipse photos on Flickr. You can also check out this real-time eclipse photo aggregator.

Images: 1. J. Aaron Farr/Flickr 2. Ptwo/Flickr 3. Full827/Flickr 4. Emran Kassim/Flickr 5. Shizao/Flickr 6&7: Marc van der Chijs/Flickr 8. Yu Lu/Flickr

Video: Bladieso/Youtube

See Also:

Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes, Wired Science on Twitter.