{"id":64366,"date":"2026-08-01T15:09:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/64366\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T15:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:09:22","slug":"augusts-total-solar-eclipse-will-sweep-over-spain-iceland-and-greenland-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/64366\/","title":{"rendered":"August’s total solar eclipse will sweep over Spain, Iceland and Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time in more than a century, a total solar eclipse<\/a> is coming to mainland Spain with an even longer encore next summer.<\/p>\n

Toss in a crescendoing meteor shower<\/a> and a six-planet parade on the same day, and the heavens will be overflowing with awe.<\/p>\n

Daytime darkness<\/a> will descend Aug. 12 across the Iberian Peninsula close to sunset \u2014 plus slivers of Greenland and Iceland \u2014 as the sun, moon and Earth align<\/a> perfectly in the sky. <\/p>\n

Starting near the North Pole before tracking south, totality will last up to two minutes and 18 seconds, an appetizer for an even longer solar show next year \u2014 a 6 \u00bd-minute extravaganza that will sweep from Spain to North Africa and the Middle East.<\/p>\n

It will take 1 \u00bd hours for the umbra, or moon\u2019s sun-blocking shadow, to race along the 5,130-mile (8,260-kilometer) course, most of it over an empty Atlantic. Maximum totality will occur off Iceland\u2019s west coast. By the time it reaches a small patch of Portugal and then Spain with its massive crowds, totality will have dwindled to a minute or so. The spectacle will end in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of millions more on the sidelines are in for a treat as well.<\/p>\n

A partial eclipse will delight as far away as Alaska and Siberia, enveloping Canada, the northern U.S., and much of Europe and West Africa.<\/p>\n

The closer to totality\u2019s course, the more the sun will vanish behind the moon \u2013 94% coverage in Dublin and 83% in Oslo, Norway. Montreal will see an 18% bite out of the sun, tapering to 9% in New York and 2% in Norfolk, Virginia.<\/p>\n

Special eclipse glasses<\/a> are crucial. even if a morsel of sun is showing.<\/p>\n

Adding to the cosmic wonder, the day begins with six of our neighboring planets forming an arc in the sky before dawn and end with the Perseid meteor shower peaking after nightfall under the new moon. Streaking meteors could photobomb totality, with some of the brighter planets and stars visible in the background.<\/p>\n

Eclipse mapmaker Michael Zeiler is chasing an even more elusive interloper: the northern lights.<\/p>\n

For his 13th total solar eclipse, Zeiler will be on a cruise ship in a Greenland fjord, sailing as a guest lecturer. He\u2019ll point a video camera toward the north to capture any aurora forming during totality. A massive outburst from the sun would be the icing on his eclipse cake.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat gets me excited is viewing rare phenomena,\u201d Zeiler said in an email.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not the only one revved up.<\/p>\n

The European Space Agency will host a live webcast from Spain\u2019s Astrophysical Observatory of Javalambre and a public celebration in Leon. NASA will provide its own coverage, as will the Italian-based Virtual Telescope Project and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s not just a scientific moment. It\u2019s not just an incredible alignment of heavenly bodies. It\u2019s also a very human moment,\u201d said ESA\u2019s director of science Carole Mundell. \u201cIt\u2019s a real human connection between us with our feet planted on the Earth and the cosmos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of ESA\u2019s space telescopes will observe the eclipsed sun and its corona, or outer atmosphere. Proba-3, the space agency\u2019s artificial eclipse-making satellite duo<\/a>, will be in the wrong part of its orbit during totality as seen from Earth, but will try to sneak in some before-and-after shots.<\/p>\n

U.S. college research teams are also pitching in, launching more than 60 high-altitude balloons from Spain and Iceland to study Earth\u2019s atmosphere and other changes during the eclipse when the temperature momentarily drops. They launched 10 times as many balloons during the 2024 total solar eclipse that captivated North America<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of minutes isn\u2019t a lot of time, but it\u2019s still plenty to affect the atmosphere and to make that cold, dark shadow of the moon on Earth,\u201d said Montana State University\u2019s Angela Des Jardins, who leads the NASA-funded balloon project.<\/p>\n

Southwest Research Institute\u2019s Amir Caspi also expects a scientific bonanza from his study aboard a NASA high-altitude plane. Four cameras will record the corona in nine wavelengths as the jet chases the eclipse at 460 mph (740 kph), extending totality to nearly three minutes in the air. Caspi anticipates thousands of images gathered from each camera during those precious 180 seconds.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s true the eclipse is short, but it\u2019s still incredibly valuable,” he said.<\/p>\n

An exceptionally long total solar eclipse is in store for 2027, yielding nearly three times more observation time.<\/p>\n

The southern tip of Spain will take center stage on Aug. 2, 2027, with up to six minutes and 23 seconds of totality extending into Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia. <\/p>\n

Then on Jan. 26, 2028, a ring-of-fire eclipse will round out Spain\u2019s celestial trifecta \u2014 \u201ca lucky coincidence,\u201d according to ESA\u2019s Mundell.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all the more extraordinary considering Spain\u2019s last full solar eclipse \u2014 not counting the Canary Islands \u2014 occurred two days before the Titanic\u2019s sinking in 1912. Because that rare hybrid eclipse toggled between a ring-of-fire and just a few seconds of totality for Spain, some consider 1905 for the country\u2019s last pull-out-all-the-stops solar eclipse.<\/p>\n

The Royal Observatory of Belgium\u2019s Andrei Zhukov can\u2019t get enough of them regardless of their length or origin. His Proba-3 science mission has created more than 60 simulated total solar eclipses over the past two years, with the longest lasting five hours and 38 minutes from two satellites flying in formation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to more eclipses,\u201d Zhukov said, \u201cnatural or artificial.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in more than a century, a total solar eclipse is coming to mainland Spain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25923,15300,1220,25922,352,17,3043,394],"class_list":["post-64366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-astronomy","tag-eclipses","tag-general-news","tag-planets","tag-science","tag-spain","tag-technology","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}