Kahuna Announces Eclipse

SUN CITY, California Republic -- In a press release issued a short time ago, Kahuna announced that a hybrid solar eclipse has been scheduled over the Pacific Ocean and parts of Central America later today, 8th April 2005. The event will commence as an annular eclipse at 18:54 UTC and develop into a total eclipse in 24 minutes. This phase will last 84 minutes before reverting to an annular eclipse for another 33 minutes. The central path of the eclipse is expected to extend 12,941 km over the Earth’s surface with the totality being 27 km at its widest point [Animation].

Kahuna calculated the velocity of the umbral cone to exceed Mach 3 at sea level, adding that at least an SR-71 Blackbird would be required to keep up with the eclipse. Each Pratt & Whitney J58 continuous-bleed afterburning engine of the aircraft would produce 145 kN of thrust, operating as a turbojet at low speed and as a ramjet at high speed. Kahuna declared the engine design to be highly disturbing and cautioned that arch-climatologist Professor Gordon may attempt to steal one for personal use. Gordon was unavailable for comment.

Clowns planning on eclipse-chasing with a Blackbird are advised to first read the SR-71 Flight Manual. Kahuna advises extreme caution in perusing this document as the cognitive equivalent of a kernel panic is most likely in lesser mortals.

We now return you to regularly scheduled Jester bashing.