{"id":69674,"date":"2026-08-12T16:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/69674\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T16:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:22:20","slug":"total-solar-eclipse-2026-live-updates-from-iceland-and-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/69674\/","title":{"rendered":"Total solar eclipse 2026: Live updates from Iceland and Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tThe 2026 total solar eclipse reaches Iceland and Spain on August 12. Astronomy magazine\u2019s Senior Editor Alison Klesman is on the ground in Iceland and Editor Emeritus Dave Eicher is in Spain \u2014 follow our live updates on totality, weather, and the science in real time.\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBaily’s beads, like these seen during the 2017 total solar eclipse, appear just before and just after totality. Credit: NASA\/Aubrey Gemignani\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Today, the Moon\u2019s shadow will fall across the North Atlantic, sending Greenland, Iceland, and Spain into darkness for a total solar eclipse. This will be the first Iceland has seen since 1954, and the first over Reykjav\u00edk in almost six hundred years. Totality will reach Iceland in the afternoon local time and Spain in the evening, just before sunset. Astronomy\u2019s Senior Editor Alison Klesman is on the ground in Iceland and Editor Emeritus and former Editor-in-Chief Dave Eicher is in Spain with our travel partner, Eclipse Traveler<\/a>. They\u2019ll be filing live updates as the eclipse unfolds.<\/p>\n

Refresh for updates<\/p>\n

12:05 p.m. EDT: Who can see a partial eclipse?<\/p>\n

Inside the path of totality, the Moon fully covers the Sun\u2019s disk \u2014 the only moment it\u2019s safe to look up without protective eyewear. Everywhere else, from most of Europe to parts of Canada and the northern U.S., observers are seeing a partial eclipse, where a sliver of the Sun stays uncovered.<\/p>\n

\"\"A narrow band traces the eclipse\u2019s path of totality from the Arctic through Greenland, Iceland, and northern Spain in this global view. The much wider gray zone marks where observers across northern North America, Europe, and western Africa will see only a partial eclipse. Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)<\/p>\n

11:55 a.m. EDT: Where today\u2019s eclipse will \u2014 and won\u2019t \u2014 be total<\/p>\n

The path of totality is a narrow band roughly 183 miles (294 km) wide. Starting over a remote northeastern corner of Russia, it runs across eastern Greenland before curving south to the west coast of Iceland, arcing across Spain, and ending over the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

In Iceland, the Moon\u2019s shadow reaches the shores of the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve at 1:43 p.m. EDT, before heading south across the Westfjords, the Sn\u00e6fellsnes Peninsula, Reykjav\u00edk, and the Reykjanes Peninsula. The single longest totality along the entire path \u2014 2 minutes and 18 seconds \u2014 occurs over the water of Brei\u00f0afj\u00f6r\u00f0ur Bay on Iceland\u2019s western coast. Totality lasts longest on land at L\u00e1trabjarg in the Westfjords, at 2 minutes and 13 seconds; in downtown Reykjav\u00edk, it\u2019s a brief 1 minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From there, the shadow advances across the Atlantic, reaching northern Spain about 35 minutes later. As sunset closes in, the Sun will hang lower in the sky for totality in Spain. In some cities, the Sun will set fully before the partial eclipse ends. Totality runs about 1 minute 45 seconds in Le\u00f3n and fading to just over a minute near Vitoria-Gasteiz which lies along the path\u2019s northern most edge. <\/p>\n

\"AEastern Greenland, western Iceland, and northern Spain are the places to be if you want to witness the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The 2026 total solar eclipse reaches Iceland and Spain on August 12. Astronomy magazine\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27357,15300,27358,27359,17],"class_list":["post-69674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-2026-solar-eclipse","tag-eclipses","tag-observing","tag-solar-observing","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69674","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=69674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}