Hordes of scientists, students and nature enthusiasts prepared Tuesday for the longest total solar eclipse of this century, while millions planned to shutter themselves indoors, giving in to superstitious myths about the phenomenon.
Wednesday's eclipse will first be sighted at dawn in India's Gulf of Khambhat, just north of the metropolis of Mumbai, before being seen in a broad swath moving north and east to Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan and China.
The eclipse will reach its peak in India at about 6:20 a.m. local time (8:50 p.m. EDT; 0050 GMT), and will last 6 minutes and 39 seconds at its maximum point.
It will be seen for 3 minutes and 48 seconds in the Indian village of Taregna, where scientists say residents will have the clearest view.
Over the past week the village has been swamped by researchers who will study scientific phenomena ranging from the behavior of birds and other animals to atmospheric changes affected by the eclipse.
Hotels in Patna were fully booked while taxis raised their rates sensing a brief opportunity in the sudden interest in the village.
The whole process takes only several thousands of a second.
But when the droplets hit the ground, the most numerous by far are very small, while large drops are comparatively few.
"Rainfall does indeed start through coalescence in the clouds but something quite different happens on the way down, and this explains the diversity of raindrop sizes," said Emmanuel Villermaux, who co-wrote the study with Benjamin Bossa of the Aix-Marseille University in southern France.
"Each drop breaks up individually, independently of its neighbors, on its way to earth."
Way back in 1904, scientists noted that raindrops came in different sizes.
The hypothesis was that droplets which bump into other droplets coalesce and become bigger, while smaller droplets are those that did not bump into as many other droplets.
But the new paper, published online in the journal Nature Physics, says the process is in fact much simpler than thought.
The findings could have practical applications in understanding rainfall patterns and in crop spraying, said Villermaux.
"Understanding how droplets will be distributed can be very important. Take pesticide spraying, for instance. With most sprayers in use today, all it takes is a slight breeze for half of the pesticide to end up in the neighboring field," he said.
Scientists set up telescopes and other equipment in Taregna a day in advance to make the most of the brief window of opportunity provided by the eclipse.
"We are hoping to make some valuable observations on the formation of asteroids around the sun," Pankaj Bhama, a scientist with India's Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators, said Tuesday.
Thousands of people lined up outside a planetarium in Patna on Tuesday to buy solar viewing goggles. The goggles, costing 20 rupees (40 cents), are supposed to act as filters and allow people to look at the sun without damaging their eyes.
But millions across India were shunning the sight and planned to stay indoors, gripped by fearful myths.
Across India, even in regions where the eclipse was not visible, pregnant women were advised to stay indoors in curtained rooms over a belief that the sun's invisible rays would harm the fetus and the baby would be born with disfigurations, birthmarks or a congenital defect.
Still, it was not all gloom and doom. A travel agency in India is running a charter flight to watch the eclipse by air, with seats facing the sun selling at a premium.
From : Discovery Channel
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