New Delhi: Ahead of the solar eclipse, all the Chardham temples in Uttarakhand will remain closed from 10 pm tonight till Sunday afternoon. Due to the solar eclipse, the temple of Badrinath-Kedarnath and Gangotri-Yamunotri will remain closed from 10 pm tonight, officials said.

Bhuvan Chandra Uniyal, the priest of Badrinath Dham, said that even though the solar eclipse is tomorrow but its ‘Sutak’ will start 12 hours earlier. The ‘Sutak’ will start from 10.25 pm tonight, which will remain till 1.53 pm on Sunday.

He said that prayers will be offered only after 2 pm on Sunday, after cleaning the premises of the Chardham temples.

This will be the first solar eclipse of the year 2020 in which the moon will cover the Sun, making it a ‘fire ring’ during the maximum phase of the eclipse.

“Tomorrow the sun will be right in the middle of the Tropic of Cancer of the equator, the eclipse will start at 10.24 am and will last for three hours twenty-six minutes till 1.51 pm. The Sun on the peak of the eclipse will look like a ring,” Bhaskar Dimri, a priest of Badrinath Dham told ANI.

Around 25 years ago, on October 24, 1995, there was darkness due to the solar eclipse, it seemed as if it was night, the solar eclipse on June 21 is going to be the same, he added.