Solar eclipse: Thousands gather to watch sun darken in South America

Scientists observe as heavens darken over northern Chile

The solar eclipse as seen from the La Silla European Southern Observatory (AFP/Getty Images)

The sun entered a total eclipse over South America for a few minutes on Tuesday.

Thousands of locals and tourists watched in northern Chile as the sky darkened at 4.38pm local time (9.38pm BST).

Some people had travelled to South America just to watch the solar event, which lasted around four minutes.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, plunging the planet into darkness.

It happens only rarely in any given spot across the globe.

Chile and Argentina were the only places that Tuesday’s total eclipse could be seen, but the event was livestreamed online.

For the most part, the eclipse passed over uninhabited parts of the world.

It spent much of its time over the Pacific Ocean, as well as trailing over the Andes mountain range.

The eclipse first made landfall in Chile at 3.22pm local time in La Serena, a city of some 200,000 people.

The arrival of more than 300,000 visitors in the city forced the local water company to increase output and service gas stations to store extra fuel.

As well as being an impressive event eclipses can be an important way for Nasa and other organisations to study the solar system.

In particular, the space agency can watch the solar radiation that drives space weather around Earth.

That can have significant effects on the health of astronauts and the materials used to build spacecraft, and so the data gathered today could go on to inform the ways that Nasa plans for people to head to the Moon and Mars in the years to come.

Additional reporting by agencies