MOSCOW, August 1, 2008 (AFP) - Thousands of people gathered across Arctic regions, Siberia and China on Friday to see a total eclipse of the sun, despite Chinese warnings that it could augur bad luck.

BEIJING, August 1, 2008 (AFP) - Thousands of people gathered in northern China on Friday to watch the first solar eclipse in the country this century, state media reported, a week ahead of the Olympic Games.

MOSCOW, August 1, 2008 (AFP) - Visitors flocked to witness a total eclipse of the sun in Siberia on Friday, a surge in tourists that prompted astronomical hotel prices in the remote region, Russian media reported.

Over 10,000 visitors -- including many foreign 'eclipse chasers' -- came to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, NTV television reported.

HONG KONG, July 29, 2008 (AFP) - A total eclipse of the sun a week before the Beijing Olympics will spook the superstitious but Chinese authorities have no reason to fear for the Games, astrologers and feng shui experts say.

PARIS, July 28, 2008 (AFP) - Facts about total solar eclipses:

- Total solar eclipses occur when the Moon comes between the Earth and the Sun, completely obscuring the solar disk for a few minutes along a narrow path. The eclipse follows a West-to-East track that can last several hours until this perfect alignment ends.

PARIS, July 28, 2008 (AFP) - Earth, the Sun and the Moon will align in a celestial ballet on Friday, rewarding China, where the first record of an eclipse was made more than 4,000 years ago, with a dazzling show.

WASHINGTON, July 24, 2008 (AFP) - Explosions of magnetic energy between Earth and the moon are behind the sparkles and wavy glows of the Northern Lights that color the night sky, NASA said Thursday.

A network of five satellites of a mission known as THEMIS that studied the phenomenon for a year helped researchers lift the veil from some of the mystery behind the aurora borealis.

PARIS, July 15, 2008 (AFP) - Pluto -- downgraded two years ago to the status of a dwarf planet -- has an exotically-named chum on the fringes of the Solar System.

WASHINGTON, July 4, 2008 (AFP) - Einstein's theory of general relativity holds up, according to astrophysicists who tested it against a unique cosmological configuration of two pulsars orbiting each other.

Pulsars are small and extremely dense stellar objects left behind after massive stars explode.

WASHINGTON, July 3, 2008 (AFP) - Volcanic activity played a key role in shaping the planet Mercury's crater-riddled surface, and not asteroid impacts as previously theorized, according to US research published Thursday.