On Wednesday, 1999 August 11, a total eclipse of the Sun was visible from within a narrow corridor which traversed a path from the Atlantic and crossed central Europe, the Middle East, and India where it ended at sunset in the Bay of Bengal. The last Solar eclipse of the millenium as captured in camera...

Solar eclipses can only occur at New Moon when the Moon passes between the Earth and Sun. At that time, the Moon's shadow sweeps across Earth's surface and we see some portion of the Sun's disk covered or 'eclipsed' by the Moon. Since we have a New Moon every 29 1/2 days, you might think that we should have a solar eclipse about once a month. Unfortunately, we don't because the Moon's orbit around Earth is tilted about 5 degrees to Earth's orbit around the Sun. As a result, the Moon's shadow usually misses Earth as it passes above or below our planet at New Moon. At least twice a year, the geometry lines up just right so that some part of the Moon's shadow falls on Earth's surface and an eclipse of the Sun is seen from that region.