A Total Solar Eclipse Hits Europe Next Month, the First in 27 Years. Here’s Who Gets to See It.
On August 12, exactly one month from now, the Moon is going to blot out the Sun over parts of the Arctic and Europe. It’ll be the first total solar eclipse visible from mainland Europe since 1999, and eclipse chasers have been circling this date for years.
If you remember the frenzy around the 2024 eclipse across North America, this is the next big one. The catch: most of us in the US only get a partial look.
Where the shadow actually lands
The path of totality, the narrow strip where the Sun goes completely dark, starts at sunrise over remote Arctic Russia near the Taymyr Peninsula. From there it sweeps across the Arctic Ocean, passes close to the North Pole, and crosses Greenland before reaching western Iceland.
Then it heads out over the Atlantic and makes landfall again across northern Spain, ending near the Balearic Islands. A tiny northwestern corner of Portugal catches it too. All told, the shadow travels about 5,100 miles in roughly 96 minutes.
It’s a sunset eclipse in Spain
Timing changes everything depending on where you stand. In that small stretch of northern Russia, totality happens around midday. Greenland and Iceland get it in the late afternoon or early evening.
Spain gets the most dramatic version. There, the Sun won’t go fully dark until late evening, shortly before sunset. A “sunset eclipse” with the blacked-out Sun sitting low on the horizon is a rare and genuinely stunning thing to witness, which is why northern Spain is expected to draw huge crowds.
For most people in the path, totality lasts less than two minutes. Near the center line it stretches to about two and a half.
What the US sees
Here’s the part for readers back home. The US isn’t in the path of totality, but a chunk of the country will catch a partial eclipse, where the Moon takes a bite out of the Sun without fully covering it.
That partial view runs from Alaska down to as far as North Carolina, along with most of Canada, much of Europe, and northwestern Africa. It’s not the day-goes-dark spectacle of 2024, but it’s still worth stepping outside for, with proper eclipse glasses on.
The next total solar eclipse to cross the mainland US isn’t until 2044. So if you’ve got the miles and the vacation days, Iceland and Spain are where the action is.
Why people plan trips around this
Total eclipses turn ordinary people into travelers. The sky goes dark in the middle of the day, the temperature drops, birds go quiet, and the Sun’s corona flares out around a black disc. People describe it as one of the most moving things they’ve ever seen, and no photo really captures it.
That’s why a remote path across Iceland and northern Spain has hotels booked out a year in advance. A rare sky event that only touches a thin ribbon of the planet is exactly the kind of thing worth chasing.
If you’re into the science moments the whole internet talks about, the story of Earth’s newly spotted quasi-moon is another good one. For more on the events people are planning their summer around, follow our Trending section.
Mark August 12. Even a partial bite out of the Sun is a good reason to look up.
