“This is why the moon is able, sometimes, to block our view of the sun and do so in a way that just barely manages to cover the sun,” says Jack Welch, a docent at the Robert Ferguson Observatory in Sonoma County, California.
So why doesn’t this happen every month? The moon’s orbit is tilted by about five degrees relative to Earth’s path around the sun, so the three bodies don’t always align. During most new moons, the lunar shadow passes above or below Earth. If it clips the Earth, we may experience a partial solar eclipse.
The moon’s orbit is also slightly elliptical, meaning its distance from Earth varies. When the moon is farther away, it can appear too small to cover the sun completely even if all three celestial bodies align. The result is an annular eclipse, in which a bright “ring of fire” remains visible around the moon.
Where will the August 2026 eclipse be visible?
The August 12 eclipse will cross remote parts of the Arctic before passing over Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, and a small section of northwestern Portugal. Totality will begin at the first location at about 4:58 p.m. UTC and end at the last at about 6:34 p.m. UTC. The eclipse will reach its maximum at 5:46 p.m. UTC, when totality will last up to two minutes and 18 seconds along the center of the path.
The sun’s position will vary considerably across the route. “Iceland and Greenland will see totality higher in the sky in the late afternoon while Spain will see totality just before sunset,” says Emily Watson, an astrophysicist and planetarium supervisor at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.