A hybrid eclipse is a rare solar eclipse that changes type along its path: annular in some places and total in others. The tip of the Moon's umbra only just reaches Earth, so the places nearest the Moon, around the middle of the path, see totality. About 1 in 20 solar eclipses is hybrid; the next is 14 November 2031.
Understanding Hybrid Eclipse
Why the eclipse changes type
At the ends of an eclipse path the Sun is on the horizon, and the ground there is about one Earth radius, roughly 6,400 km, farther from the Moon than the point beneath it at mid-eclipse. Usually that makes no difference: the umbra either clearly reaches the ground or clearly falls short. In a hybrid eclipse the tip of the umbra lies between those two distances, so it touches down only around the middle of the path. The result is a short totality in the centre and an annular eclipse with a very thin ring towards the ends.
How rare hybrid eclipses are
Over the five thousand years from 2000 BC to AD 3000, solar eclipses split roughly like this. None of the eclipses on Orbital Radar's pages to 2030 is hybrid.
| Type | Share of solar eclipses |
|---|---|
| Partial | About 35% |
| Annular | About 33% |
| Total | About 27% |
| Hybrid | About 5% |
The hybrids either side of today
The hybrid eclipse of 20 April 2023 gave just over a minute of totality at most, on the North West Cape of Western Australia, in Timor-Leste and in parts of Indonesia, and thousands travelled to the remote Exmouth peninsula to see it. The next hybrid comes on 14 November 2031, mostly over the Pacific Ocean. In between, every central solar eclipse is either total or annular.