North America will have a total solar eclipse on 8 April – here is where, when and how to view it safely
By Leah Crane and Jamie Carter
5 April 2024
In a total solar eclipse the moon blocks out the light from the sun
Scott sady/tahoelight.com/Alamy
A total solar eclipse is coming to North America. On 8 April, the moon will pass between Earth and the sun, aligning perfectly to block out the sun’s entire disc in an event called totality. It will be visible from a thin strip of land spanning from Mexico across the US to Canada.
The eclipse will commence in the Pacific Ocean about halfway between North America and New Zealand, and it will begin to be visible on Mexico’s west coast at 9.51am local time. It will start as a partial eclipse, with the moon slowly moving to cover more and more of the sun. Totality will first be visible on Mexico’s west coast at 11.07am local time.
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As the sun and moon move across the sky, the eclipse will become visible in the US above a swathe of land about 185 kilometres (115 miles) wide, known as the path of totality. It will pass over 13 states, from Texas up through Maine, before crossing into southern Ontario in Canada. The last place on land from which the eclipse will be visible will be Newfoundland, and totality will end there at 5.16pm local time.
The duration of totality will vary by location, from less than 2 minutes to nearly 4.5 minutes. This is because the moon’s orbit around Earth isn’t perfectly circular – nor is Earth’s orbit around the sun – so the distances between the three celestial bodies will change throughout the day.
How dark will it get?
During a total solar eclipse, the moon’s shadow travels across the ground at speeds in excess of 2400 kilometres per hour, creating a dark spot that rushes along the ground. Temperatures in this shadow drop dramatically. Totality is as dark as dawn or dusk, within about half an hour before sunrise or after sunset. It’s dark enough to see the brightest stars and planets, but not quite as dark as nighttime because some sunlight does still shine around the edges of the moon. The brightness of that sunlight depends on the exact orientations of the sun and moon in their orbits, which affect the size of the moon’s shadow on Earth.