A total solar eclipse will take place on Monday, August 21, 2017. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide.
The eclipse will have a magnitude of 1.0306 and will be visible from a narrow corridor through the United States. The longest duration of totality will be 2 minutes 44.3 seconds at 37°38′12″N 89°15′24″W in the Shawnee National Forest just south of Carbondale, Illinois.[1] It will be the first total solar eclipse visible from the southeastern United States since the solar eclipse of March 7, 1970.
A partial solar eclipse will be seen from the much broader path of the Moon's penumbra, including all of North America, northern South America, western Europe, and Africa.
This eclipse is the 22nd of the 77 members of Saros series 145, the one that also produced the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999. Members of this series are increasing in duration. The longest eclipse in this series will occur on June 25, 2522 and last for 7 minutes and 12 seconds.
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Related eclipses over the United States
This eclipse will be the first total solar eclipse visible from the United States since 1991 (which was seen only from part of Hawaii),[2] and the first visible from the contiguous United States since 1979.[3] A 1991 article in Discover noted that "The total solar eclipse of July 11, 1991", that passed over Hawaii and significant portions of Mexico, "[was] the best anyone will be able to see from the [US land] until 2017."[4]
The path of totality of the solar eclipse of February 26, 1979 passed only through the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota. Many visitors traveled to the Pacific Northwest to view the eclipse, since it was the last chance to view a total solar eclipse in the United States for almost four decades.[5][6]
Some American scientists and interested amateurs seeking to experience a total eclipse participated in a four-day Atlantic Oceancruise to view the solar eclipse of July 10, 1972 as it passed near Nova Scotia. Organizers of the cruise advertised in astronomical journals and in planetarium announcements emphasizing the lack of future U.S. total eclipses until this 2017 event.[7]
The August 2017 eclipse will be the first with a path of totality crossing the USA's Pacific coast and Atlantic coast since 1918.
The path of this eclipse crosses the upcoming path of the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, with the intersection of the two paths being in southern Illinois in Makanda just south of Carbondale. A small land area, including the cities of Carbondale, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and Paducah, Kentucky, will thus experience two total solar eclipses within a span of fewer than seven years.
The solar eclipse of August 12, 2045 will have a very similar path of totality over the USA, about 250 miles (400 km) to the southwest, also crossing the USA's Pacific coast and Atlantic coast; however, duration of totality will last over twice as long.[8]
An eclipse of comparable length (up to 3 minutes 8 seconds) occurred over the contiguous United States on March 7, 1970along the southeast US coast, from Florida to Virginia.[9]
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Animation |  Animation of shadow |
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