Eclipse Wows Crowd in Turkey

Thousands of people gathered Wednesday near an ancient temple of Apollo and cheered as a total solar eclipse turned day into twilight, casting an eerie blue glow across the sky and the Mediterranean.

NASA astronomers handed out protective glasses to hundreds of Turkish children before the eclipse, which cut a dark swath across the sky from Brazil, across West Africa, Turkey and Central Asia, then disappeared at sunset in Mongolia.

The last total solar eclipse was in November 2003, but that was best viewed from sparsely populated Antarctica.

In the resort of Side, near Antalya, a crowd of about 10,000 cheered and whistled as the moon took its first bite out of the sun. When the moon masked the sun and Venus suddenly shone brightly in the darkened sky, another loud cheer went up. The total eclipse lasted three minutes.

NASA’s Janet Luhmann, who viewed the eclipse from an ancient Roman theater near Apollo’s temple, said, “It’s one of those experiences that makes you feel like you’re part of the larger universe.”