NY. Heads up, North America: It’s a year away from dusting off your glasses for a total solar eclipse. On April 8, 2024, the Moon will cast its shadow across the Sun across Mexico, the United States, and Canada, leaving millions of people in the dark in broad daylight.
It’s been less than six years since a total solar eclipse streaked across the sky across the United States from coast to coast. It was August 21, 2017.
Whoever misses the next show will have to wait 20 years until the next eclipse, but that one will only be visible in Montana and the Dakotas.
Next year’s eclipse will track diagonally across North America. It will begin in the Pacific and make landfall in Mexico at around 11:07 a.m. local time, NASA reported.
According to the website https://eclipse2024.org/path-north-america.htmlwill cross the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Nayarit, Durango, Chihuahua and Coahuila.
It will then enter Texas, traveling through parts of 13 states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It will pass through the cities of Dallas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Indianapolis; Cleveland and Buffalo, New York.
In Canada it will be seen in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
The trajectory of totality will have a width of 185 kilometers. Outside of that strip, a partial eclipse will be seen, in which it will appear that the Moon will eat a piece of the Sun and turn it into a “croissant”.
Total eclipses occur about every 18 months, but many pass through remote areas where few people see them.
Solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, blocking sunlight.
Although the Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, it is 400 times closer to Earth, explained astronomer Doug Duncan. So when their orbits align from Earth’s perspective, our natural satellite can block out the huge star.
Those who are in the right places will see a total eclipse: when the shadow of the Moon covers the entire landscape.
Totality in 2024 will last four and a half minutes, almost twice as long as in 2017.
The weather can be an adverse factor, since the eclipse will occur in the spring, when the weather is unpredictable. Texas is a good place to find clear skies.
Events of all kinds have been planned along the way: luxury cruises in Mexico, music festivals in Texas, campouts in Arkansas, and visits to planetariums in upstate New York.
Eclipse glasses are needed to see the partial phases before and after totality, said Dan Schneiderman, who helps the Rochester Museum and Science Center plan events. Looking at the partially covered Sun without protection can be harmful to your eyesight.
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