Latest news with #eclipseChasers
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
We're halfway between the April 2024 and August 2026 total solar eclipses: Here's why we're excited
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. There may be no total solar eclipse this year, but June 10, 2025, is a landmark event of sorts for eclipse chasers worldwide — the halfway point between the last and the next totalities. It's 429 days — just over 14 months — since April 8, 2024's "Great American Eclipse" across North America and 429 days until the next total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026, over Greenland, Iceland and Spain. Related: Eclipse at sea: Best cruises for the total solar eclipse 2026 For some devotees of what's often called "nature's greatest event," it's a moment to reflect on and relive a landmark eclipse now in the rearview mirror. About 50 million people experienced the last total solar eclipse in Mexico, 15 U.S. states and southeastern Canada. It was, as expected by many, an event with mixed weather. Texas, which had the best odds of a clear sky, had clouds to varying degrees, with the clearest weather in the supposedly cloudiest regions of Indiana, Ohio, upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in the U.S., and Quebec and New Brunswick in Canada. It was even cloudy over northern Mexico, but some had the right kind of sea legs. "We had to sail a considerable distance away from the coast to find a spot where it would be clear at eclipse time, and when the eclipse began in a clear blue sky, I got a rush of excitement as I realized we were going to see the entire spectacle," Rick Fienberg at the American Astronomical Society's Solar Eclipse Task Force, told During totality, he noticed two parallel contrails in the sky close to the eclipse. "I realized they were from the two NASA research planes that were chasing totality about 40,000 feet above us [and] when I swung my binoculars to them, I could see the jets themselves," Fienberg continued. Thoughts are now firmly fixed on the next total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026, which will see eclipse chasers head to the fjords of eastern Greenland in cruise ships, to remote parts of western Iceland and to northern Spain. The total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026, will have a maximum totality of 2 minutes and 18 seconds and be mainland Europe's first since 1999. Eclipse cartographer Michael Zeiler at and who was clouded out in Texas, has plans in place. "I am in great anticipation of the return of nature's greatest sight," Zeiler told "Total solar eclipses are guaranteed to take you to beautiful remote locations on Earth, and in 2026, Greenland is high on my bucket list." Bucket list locations abound across the path. "I don't think the tourism industry realizes what they are about to experience because we haven't had a total solar eclipse visible from Iceland since the summer of 1954," Sævar Helgi Bragason, an astronomy and science communicator at and told who's been preparing since 2015. "I've spent the better part of last year and this year increasing awareness with the general public, giving talks and having countless meetings with municipalities, tour companies, even the minister of justice and members of the parliament," he says. "It's finally paying off [but] we still have a long way to go." He's hoping Iceland's unique charms appeal to eclipse chasers, adding: "You could witness the eclipse from a geothermal pool or surrounded by incredible volcanic landscapes — and Icelanders know how to throw a good party!" For Spain, there's been a much longer wait for what will be a very special totality. "It's the first total solar eclipse visible from mainland Spain in over 120 years, and it's taking place in my home country," Dan Zafra, an astrophotographer at told "It's a rare opportunity not just for Spaniards but for eclipse chasers and photographers worldwide to witness totality in a stunning and accessible European setting." As eclipse chasers on cruise ships in Greenland experience totality, the sun and moon will be about 25 degrees above the northwestern horizon. However, once the path has crossed northern Spain, it will be close to sunset. Fienberg will be on a cruise ship in the western Mediterranean Sea between the coast of mainland Spain and Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands. "We'll have a little more than 1½ minutes of totality with the sun about 3½ degrees above the horizon just before sundown," said Fienberg. "Then we'll see the thin crescent sun appear to sink into the sea. The entire spectacle should be quite dramatic." Since any one place on Earth experiences totality on average once every 36 years, according to NASA, eclipse chasing typically demands travel. "Once you've seen the dramatic beauty of a total solar eclipse, you might well get the bug to travel the world to see more," Zeiler said. "Life is short, and travel to far-away destinations will be so rewarding in so many ways." The 2026 total solar eclipse will be followed one lunar year later on August 2, 2027, when a maximum totality of 6 minutes and 23 seconds will be seen from Egypt, with Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia also in the path. Another lunar year will see a 5-minute and 10-second totality on July 22, 2028, in Australia, with New Zealand getting totality close to sunset. To the uninitiated, the passion of eclipse chasers leaves many confused. Perhaps that's because photos of totality typically fail to do the majesty of the event justice. Seeing the solar corona with the naked eye is a moment to savor, but there's much more to it than visuals." You don't just see a total solar eclipse. You feel it as the air cools and the wind changes speed and direction. You hear it in the cheers and cries of those around you and the sounds of insects and birds behaving as they do at sunset," said Fienberg. "It's among the most awesome experiences you can have on this planet — right up there with falling in love."
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Behold! 1st images of artificial solar eclipse captured by ESA's Proba-3 mission
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Total solar eclipses are rare, but exactly how rare is now up for debate after the European Space Agency debuted the first images today (June 16) from two new satellites that together operate as an "eclipse machine." Total solar eclipses currently occur 14 times every 18 years and 11 days somewhere on Earth, which is one every 16 months, on average. According to NASA, they occur once every 366 years in any specific place. Requiring neither lucky geography nor patience, the European Space Agency (ESA) Proba-3 mission, which launched on a PSLV-XL rocket from India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Dec. 5, 2024, has just sent back its first images that are sure to impress eclipse chasers across the world. The mission is the first to see two satellites orbit in a "precision formation," with one acting as the moon to eclipse the sun in front of the other, which points a telescope at the sun to capture its elusive corona. A decade in the making, these first images — from the mission's first successful formation flying demo on May 23 — are a glimpse of what's to come. The solar corona, the sun's outer atmosphere, is a mystery. The sun's photosphere, its surface, is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius), but the corona is two million degrees Fahrenheit (over 1,1 million degrees C) — about 200 times hotter. Scientists need to know why and how this is the case, mainly because the corona is where the solar wind is generated. "As well as being an amazing thing to see, the corona is also a laboratory for plasma physics and the main source of space weather," said Andrei Zhukov, Principal Investigator for the Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun (ASPIICS) at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, speaking at the Solar Eclipse Conference in Leuven, Belgium. Observations of the corona are crucial to understanding phenomena such as solar wind and coronal mass ejections, which can disrupt Earth's power and communication systems and produce spectacular displays of the northern lights. However, Proba-3's images will also help solar physicists see features in the corona that are sometimes visible to observers of total solar eclipses. "Sometimes, clouds of relatively cold plasma are observed near the sun, creating what we call a prominence," said Zhukov. Prominences are much colder than the surrounding million-degree hot plasma in the corona, though still around 10,000 degrees Celsius. "We are very happy to have been able to capture one such structure in one of the first ASPIICS images," said Zhukov. But there's a problem. The sun's disk is a million times brighter than the corona and completely overwhelms the human eye. The only time the corona can be seen is during a total solar eclipse. "They're inconvenient, they're rare and last only a few minutes," said Zhukov."The last total solar eclipse in Belgium was in 1406, and the next is in 2090. That's why we have coronagraphs." A coronagraph is a device attached to a telescope that blocks out the direct light from a star — in this case, the sun — so that whatever is around it can be seen. Sometimes it's exoplanets. In this case, it's the corona. Unfortunately, Earth's atmosphere scatters that light. In short, they work much better in space. "Current coronagraphs are no match for Proba-3, which will observe the sun's corona down almost to the edge of the solar surface," says Jorge Amaya, Space Weather Modelling Coordinator at ESA. "So far, this was only possible during natural solar eclipses." In March, Proba-3's two spacecraft — the Coronagraph satellite and the Occulter satellite — aligned 500 feet (150 meters) apart with millimeter accuracy for several hours without ground intervention. The Occulter successfully blocked the sun's disk to cast a shadow onto ASPIICS — the coronagraph's sensitive optical instrument that captures the corona. "Having two spacecraft form one giant coronagraph in space allowed us to capture the inner corona with very low levels of stray light in our observations, exactly as we expected," said Damien Galano, Proba-3 mission manager. "I was absolutely thrilled to see the images, especially since we got them on the first try," said Zhukov. "It's just a teaser because we are still in the commissioning phase." The images themselves were processed by scientists and engineers at the ASPIICS Science Operations Centre at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Each complete image — covering the area from the occulted sun to the edge of the field of view — is constructed from three images. "The difference between those is only the exposure time, which determines how long the coronagraph's aperture is exposed to light. Combining the three images gives us the full view of the corona," said Zhukov. "Our 'artificial eclipse' images are comparable with those taken during a natural eclipse — the difference is that we can create our eclipse once every 19.6-hour orbit." Proba-3 will create about 1,000 hours of images of the corona over its two-year mission — and anyone will be able to download the data. "We have an open data policy — the uncalibrated data will be published immediately so everyone will be able to calibrate their own data," said Zhukov. The solar-powered Proba-3 satellites have an elliptical orbit with a perigee (closest point) of 373 miles (600 kilometers) and an apogee of 37,000 miles (60,000 kilometers). They only fly in formation when close to apogee because that's when Earth's gravity, its magnetic field and atmospheric drag are at their weakest. That allows the satellites to use minimal propellant to attempt formation flying. The coronagraph satellite positions itself 492 feet (150 meters) behind the occulter satellite — two orders of magnitude farther than any other space-based coronagraph — with the formation flying performed down to a single millimeter in precision. The 4.4 feet (1.4 meters) occulter casts a 3.15 inch (8 centimeters) shadow onto the coronagraph. Remarkably, it's all done autonomously, with Proba standing for "Project for onboard autonomy". "The precision achieved is extraordinary," said Dietmar Pilz, ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality. "It validates our years of technological development and positions ESA at the forefront of formation flying missions." Proba-3 is not unique. A joint mission between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975 saw the first coronal observation using formation flying, with the Apollo spacecraft acting as an improvised coronagraph, allowing the Soyuz crew to photograph the solar corona. "It was all done by hand — the image was taken through a window of a Soyuz spacecraft," said Zhukov. The results were disappointing, mainly because the thruster gases around the spacecraft scattered the light. With Proba-3, the concept has become a reality, and artificial solar eclipses will be possible, revealing the inner solar corona without the need to wait for a total solar eclipse. Will that deter eclipse chasers? Absolutely not!
