SCIENCE
Great North American eclipse
April 8, 2024 - On April 8, a total solar eclipse will dazzle millions of people in North America along a path crossing from Mexico into the United States and then Canada.
Related Graphics
View More
Ageing space station leaks air
Earth has captured a new mini-moon (for two months)
Mission to find life under Jupiter moon’s ice
SpaceX tests new high-tech suit for first private spacewalk
The full Moon will be a supermoon
Mars’ subsurface could harbour an ocean
Astronauts wait to return to Earth
Boeing Starliner stuck in space
Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket inaugural launch
Starship rocket returns to Earth for first time
China’s dark side of the moon spacecraft returns home
Boeing’s Starliner first historic astronaut launch
NASA repairs Voyager 1 spacecraft
Successful launch for NASA’s new solar sail experiment
Moon-based astronomy needs sites to be protected
U.S. company makes historic moon landing
U.S. unsettled over Russian space nuclear weapon
Russian cosmonaut sets most time in space record
Japan’s moon lander Slim resumes mission
Mars helicopter ends ground-breaking mission
Private U.S. Moon mission in jeopardy
SpaceX leads the field in commercial space flight
New rockets set to launch in 2024
Space around Earth is becoming seriously overcrowded
Modified Starship readies for second test
Relics of another planet may reside deep inside Earth
“Ring of fire” eclipse to dazzle Americas
Jupiter’s moon hosts key ingredient to life
Psyche’s mission to a metal world
NASA set for historic asteroid sample delivery
The eclipse will be entering over Mexico’s Pacific coast, dashing up through Texas and Oklahoma, and crisscrossing the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England, before exiting over Eastern Canada into the Atlantic.
The total solar eclipse will have a narrow path roughly 185 kilometres wide.
Within the U.S., more than 31 million people live inside the path of totality. Millions more reside within the path in Mexico and Canada, especially the more populated cities of Mazatlán, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa.
The path of totality comes within 322km of major cities of the U.S.: Washington D.C.; Baltimore; Philadelphia; New York; and Boston. Additionally, over half the nation’s population lives within 400km of the path of totality.
This eclipse will be the first total solar eclipse to be visible in the provinces of Canada since 1979,the first in Mexico since 1991, and the first in the U.S. since 2017. It will also be the last total solar eclipse visible in the vontiguous United States until August 23, 2044.
A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth, aligning perfectly and completely blocking the sunlight.