A total solar eclipse will sweep across parts of the Northern Hemisphere today, briefly turning daylight to darkness for people positioned along a narrow path stretching from northern Russia through Greenland and Iceland before reaching Spain and a small corner of Portugal.
Some of the most dramatic views will come late in the day. Totality reaches Iceland at about 1:45 p.m. Eastern time before crossing the North Atlantic and arriving in Spain at about 2:30 p.m. Eastern. In Reykjavík, the Sun will be completely covered for roughly a minute, while several locations in Spain will experience totality shortly before sunset.
Millions more people outside the path of totality will still see a partial eclipse. London and Paris will see more than 90% of the Sun covered, while Madrid will come extremely close to totality at about 99%. Parts of the United States and Canada will also get a smaller glimpse of the event. Fairbanks, Alaska, will see about 37% coverage, while Boston will see 16%, New York City 9% and Washington, D.C., about 4%.
NASA scientists will use the eclipse as a research opportunity as well as a spectacle. A NASA-funded team plans to fly a WB-57 high-altitude research aircraft along the Moon’s shadow to study the Sun’s corona, while university teams in Iceland and Spain will launch scientific balloons to examine how the temporary loss of sunlight affects Earth’s atmosphere.
The wait for the next total solar eclipse will be much shorter: another will occur on August 2, 2027, with a path of totality crossing parts of southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
