TEHRAN – A solar eclipse will occur on the first day of summer (June 21), but the moon is too far away to fully block the sun.

The solar eclipse will sweep across the southeastern part of Iran, most notably the port of Chabahar, where 98 percent of the sun will be covered by the moon, Masoud Atighi, head of the Astronomical Society of Iran, said.

The eclipse will begin in Tehran at 9:04 a.m. local time and continue until 11:38, he noted.

The eclipse will be seen from the African continent to Asia, and the southern parts of the European continent as well as a small part of northern Australia.

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring).

An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometers wide.

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