On Monday, the moon will steal between the Earth and the sun, a total solar eclipse in North America. The path of totality, the strip of the continent where the moon will completely obscure the sun, begins in Mazatlán, Mexico, crosses over more than a dozen U.S. states, from Texas to Maine, and ends in […]
Read More
On Monday (April 8), the sky over a swathe of North America will briefly darken as the moon covers the sun completely during a total solar eclipse. For a maximum of 4 minutes and 28 seconds along a 115-mile-wide (185 kilometers) and 10,000-mile-long (16,000 km) path passing through Mexico, the United States and Canada, the […]
Read More
This Monday a total solar eclipse will appear across much of North America. Our critics Wesley Morris, Jon Pareles and Lindsay Zoladz put together a music playlist that’s a perfect accompaniment for watching the event. Featured songs: R.E.M., “Near Wild Heaven” Nina Simone, Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” The Youngbloods, “Darkness, Darkness” Keith Jarrett, “Sundance” […]
Read More
In the spring of 585 B.C. in the Eastern Mediterranean, the moon came out of nowhere to hide the face of the sun, turning day into night. Back then, solar eclipses were cloaked in scary uncertainty. But a Greek philosopher was said to have predicted the sun’s disappearance. His name was Thales. He lived on […]
Read More
A new “eclipse simulator” on SkySafari allows you to anticipate what you’ll see when the moon blocks the sun in areas of North America on Monday (April 8). The SkySafari Eclipse Simulation Widget, which you can see below, includes the ability to “watch” an eclipse from any point on Earth. A shadow tracker will let […]
Read More
Eclipse junkies will soon be bathing in the dark comfort of the moon’s shadow on April 8, when the highly anticipated event event cuts a diagonal ribbon across Mexico, 15 U.S. states, and Canada. Many observatories, educational institutions, museums, theme parks and sporting venues situated along the path of totality for the April 8 solar […]
Read More
As a total solar eclipse crosses North America on Monday (April 8), seven of the 13 people currently in space will be in the right position to see the spectacle from Earth orbit. At the same time, more than 30 other astronauts will be at locations in seven U.S. states and Canada to help the […]
Read More As a total solar eclipse crosses North America on Monday (April 8), seven of the 13 people currently in space will be in the right position to see the spectacle from Earth orbit. At the same time, more than 30 other astronauts will be at locations in seven U.S. states and Canada to help the […]
Read More
Flying a plane into the moon’s shadow during a total solar eclipse is a hot topic thanks to the upcoming solar eclipse. JSX has a dedicated eclipse flight over Dallas, and both United Airlines and Delta have long sold out tickets for scheduled flights through the path of totality on journeys from Texas to the […]
Read More
If all goes according to plan, on April 8, our 75-year-old mother, Nancy, will be settled into a lawn chair in Waco, Texas — some 1,300 miles from her recliner in Las Vegas — and joining a great many other Americans as they put on solar eclipse glasses, tilt their heads up and try to […]
Read More
On Feb. 26, 1998, hundreds of people gathered to watch a total solar eclipse. The crowd gasped as the moon gobbled up the sun. They oohed and aahed as the feathery streams of the top of the solar atmosphere burst into view. Applause erupted moments later, when the sun peeked back out from behind the […]
Read More
New York State’s corrections department agreed on Thursday to allow six men who had sued to be able to view Monday’s total solar eclipse to do so at the upstate prison where they are held, but the department stopped short of lifting a statewide prison lockdown during the eclipse. The men, inmates at Woodbourne Correctional […]
Read More
The solar eclipse that will cast a visible shadow across the United States on Monday is already leaving an obvious mark on hotel prices. The Super 8 hotel chain is considered an inexpensive option for travelers, and it has over 1,400 American locations. About 300 of those are within the path of totality, and 100 […]
Read More
In October 2023, a trio of sounding rockets traveled more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) into the ionosphere before returning safely back to the Earth‘s surface. Now, they’re getting ready for their second flight. NASA’s Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) mission — named for the Egyptian god of darkness and enemy of the sun […]
Read More
The total solar eclipse that swept across North America in 2017 was a spectacle rarely witnessed in the U.S., and millions of Americans crammed themselves into the narrow band of totality where the silhouette of the moon perfectly blocks the sun’s disk in the sky. I was not among them. While I’m tempted to blame […]
Read More
The total solar eclipse that swept across North America in 2017 was a spectacle rarely witnessed in the U.S., and millions of Americans crammed themselves into the narrow band of totality where the silhouette of the moon perfectly blocks the sun’s disk in the sky. I was not among them. While I’m tempted to blame […]
Read More
Sitting in the grass of a Tennessee state park, Tracy Gregg felt the air grow cold as the late afternoon light she’d been bathing in suddenly faded. It was August 21, 2017, the date of a total solar eclipse that swept across much of the U.S., and she was directly in its path. Overhead, the […]
Read More
The first place in North America to experience the totality stage of the solar eclipse, whereby the moon covers 100% of the sun’s disk will be Mazatlán in Sinaloa, Mexico, with totality beginning at 11:07 a.m. MST (1:07 p.m. EDT) and lasting for 4 minutes 20 seconds. The total solar eclipse will then cross two […]
Read More
If you’re going to watch the total solar eclipse on April 8, you’ve probably done some rabbit-hole research about solar eclipse glasses. In fact, maybe that research extended to the path of totality itself as you tried finding your ideal vantage point under the sky. If you’re anything like me, perhaps you’ve also been psyching […]
Read More
If you’re going to watch the total solar eclipse on April 8, you’ve probably done some rabbit-hole research about solar eclipse glasses. In fact, maybe that research extended to the path of totality itself as you tried finding your ideal vantage point under the sky. If you’re anything like me, perhaps you’ve also been psyching […]
Read More
If you’re going to watch the total solar eclipse on April 8, you’ve probably done some rabbit-hole research about solar eclipse glasses. In fact, maybe that research extended to the path of totality itself as you tried finding your ideal vantage point under the sky. If you’re anything like me, perhaps you’ve also been psyching […]
Read More
While millions of people are preparing to watch the total solar eclipse that will make its way across North America on Monday, the animals in that affected area — in homes, on farms, in zoos and in the wild — missed the news that the moon will block the sun, briefly turning day into night. […]
Read More
I did not expect to be where I am today. As a space reporter, I have spent the better part of the past decade floundering back and forth about moving to Florida to live on the Space Coast, where I could attend all the rocket launches and put myself in the thick of where so […]
Read More
There were five cars in the crowded driveway, one for each of the young men in the cramped basement running through their band’s new songs. Their last real gig was on New Year’s Eve, and now it was late March. The keyboard player was keeping an eye on the time because he had to get […]
Read More
When the moon crosses in front of the sun on Monday afternoon and, for a few minutes, casts a shadow over much of New York State, millions of people will be able to witness the rare celestial event just by looking up. Inmates in the state’s prisons will not. Last month, the state’s Department of […]
Read More
NASA astronauts and weather satellites will watch next week’s solar eclipse from space. SpaceX Crew-8 astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), alongside at least one of the two Russian Soyuz crews on board right now, will experience a “very unique vantage point” when a total solar eclipse sweeps across Mexico, the United States and […]
Read More
NASA astronauts and weather satellites will watch next week’s solar eclipse from space. SpaceX Crew-8 astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), alongside at least one of the two Russian Soyuz crews on board right now, will experience a “very unique vantage point” when a total solar eclipse sweeps across Mexico, the United States and […]
Read More
Many people in the U.S. will have an opportunity to witness nearly four minutes of a total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024, as it moves from southern Texas to Maine. But in the U.S., over 7 million people are blind or visually impaired and may not be able to experience an eclipse the […]
Read More
On April 8, North America will experience its second total solar eclipse in seven years. The moon will glide over the surface of our sun, casting a shadow over a swath of Earth below. Along this path, the world will turn dark as night. Skywatchers in Mexico will be the first to see the eclipse […]
Read More
For millennia, solar eclipses have inspired awe, wonder and fear. After all, it’s not often that twilight descends in the middle of the day. And just as we plan for and anticipate their occurrence — like the total solar eclipse that will be visible to millions of North Americans on April 8 — ancient cultures […]
Read More
An observer in or near the path of totality for the April 8 solar eclipse, can make useful observations of the appearance of the moon’s shadow projected on the Earth’s atmosphere, before, during and after mid-eclipse. Also, valuable can be studies of sky darkness. At the time of a total eclipse, the moon’s shadow cone […]
Read More