DURING the afternoon of April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse bisected the US. Not everyone sees solar and lunar eclipses as purely scientific events that have to do with the physical position of the moon or Earth and the sun’s light. According to myths and legends — and there are many in different religious traditions and cultures — solar eclipses are moments of omens and portents. For weeks leading up to the event, astrologers and psychics predict all kinds of things that could happen in the months following the eclipse. Astrologers say that the total time during which the sun is obscured, in this case three and a half to four minutes, corresponds to that many number of months in terms of the duration of the eclipse’s ‘effects’.

As if the eclipse were not enough, a comet called 12/P Pons-Brooks has also appeared in the sky at the same time as the eclipse. This comet, which appears every 71 years, is called the ‘Devil’s comet’ because it has a horned shape. The first spectacular image of the comet, which can be seen with the naked eye in many parts of the US, shows a bluish tail against the darkness of the sky. The last time that this comet was seen was in 1954 and it will not appear again until the end of the century in 2095. Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and Mars, a spectacular array of planets, were also visible at the time of the eclipse during the period of totality, which is the point when the........

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