Yes, a solar eclipse is set to take place in the coming hours \u2014 and no, the UK won\u2019t be seeing it.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not all bad news. Thanks to the rigid orbital dance between the Earth, Moon and Sun, more eclipses are guaranteed to follow. As famously put in The Simpsons: \u201cA solar eclipse: the cosmic ballet goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The line was delivered by Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy during a guest appearance in the iconic season four episode Marge vs. the Monorail. He utters the quote just as the solar-powered monorail, wildly out of control, screeches to a halt \u2014 not quite how physics works in real life, but we digress.<\/p>\n
The point is this: there will be others. And yes, we know what you\u2019re asking \u2014 when?<\/p>\n
Upcoming eclipses to add to your calendar<\/p>\n
The next solar eclipse is due later this year and will be visible over the Balearic Islands, across central Spain, and stretching over the Atlantic west of Iceland and east of Greenland. The date to mark in your diary is August 12, 2026.<\/p>\n
Almost a year later, on August 2, 2027, another eclipse will be visible as it sweeps across North Africa, the far south of Spain, and parts of Saudi Arabia. This one is particularly special. Already dubbed the \u201ceclipse of the century\u201d, it will be the longest eclipse visible from land since 1991, lasting an impressive six minutes and 22 seconds \u2014 if you happen to be 37 miles southeast of Luxor, Egypt, that is.<\/p>\n
The third eclipse follows on July 22, 2028. Anyone keen to see this one may want to start saving up for a holiday now, as it will be visible in Australia and New Zealand. It will also mark the first solar eclipse visible from Sydney in 170 years \u2014 or, to put another way, the first since 1857.<\/p>\n
So while Britons may miss out this time… and the next few times, there\u2019s no shortage of wonder to be seen in the sky above us. Provided you\u2019re willing to hop on a plane for a well-timed holiday, of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yes, a solar eclipse is set to take place in the coming hours \u2014 and no, the UK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[225682,45260,313,225683,225681,70,113874,16,15],"class_list":["post-771411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-annular-solar-eclipse","tag-antarctica","tag-eclipse","tag-eclipse-safety","tag-ring-of-fire","tag-science","tag-solar-eclipse-2026","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116088676166695860","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}