The Thai Astronomical Society announced that tomorrow, 17 February 2026, there will be an annular solar eclipse. It will occur near the Antarctic continent and emphasized that it will not be visible in Thailand, but will be seen again in 2042.
On 16 February 2026, it was reported that the Facebook pageof the Thai Astronomical Societyposted an explanation about the occurrence of an annular solar eclipse, stating that on 17 February 2026, an annular solar eclipse will happen. They warned early that this event will not be visible in Thailand, and likely fewer people will see it than the number of penguins witnessing it, since it occurs near Antarctica.
A solar eclipse is a natural coincidence where the Moon is about 400 times smaller than the Sun, and the distance from the Moon to Earth is about 400 times shorter than from the Sun to Earth. This makes the apparent sizes of the Moon and the Sun from Earth very close.
Because the distances to both the Moon and the Sun vary slightly, sometimes the Moon appears larger than the Sun, and other times the Sun appears larger than the Moon.
If the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun, a solar eclipse occurs. When the Moon’s apparent size is larger than the Sun’s, it produces a total solar eclipse. When the Moon’s apparent size is smaller, it cannot fully cover the Sun, resulting in an annular solar eclipse.
Since the Moon is more often smaller in apparent size than the Sun, annular solar eclipses occur more frequently than total solar eclipses.
If observed carefully, solar eclipses occurring early or late in the year tend to be annular because the Sun is closer then, while eclipses near mid-year have a higher chance of being total.
The page emphasized that tomorrow’s eclipse (17 February) will occur near Antarctica, while the next annular solar eclipse visible from Thailand will be on the early morning of 14 October 2042. The eclipse path will cross southern Thailand, Borneo, Sulawesi, Timor, Australia, and New Zealand.
Information courtesy of the Thai Astronomical Society’s Facebook page.