Monday, April 8, is a date marked on the calendar of astronomers and those passionate about natural phenomena. It is a day of total solar eclipse. In the middle of the day, for a few minutes, it will be night and you will even see the stars. It is a magical and unique moment.
The total solar eclipse occurs when the Earth, the Moon and the Sun align. In this way, the Moon covers the solar disk and blocks practically all of the light that reaches us from our star.
At the moment of totality, a thread of light can be seen around the profile of the Moon known as the solar corona. At times like this you can take advantage of it to have more details and observe it more easily.
The eclipse will not be visible from everyone. There will be places that will see it as a partial eclipse, others as a total one and some (like Catalonia) that we will miss. The lucky ones are the 32 million inhabitants who live under the path of that total eclipse that runs from Mexico to Labrador, in Canada, crossing some states of the United States diagonally. It can be seen clearly in the following map:
In these places, the Sun will not be covered directly but rather progressively. The partial eclipse phase lasts between 70 and 80 minutes and you must protect your eyes to observe it. You cannot look without a filter or directly through a telescope or binoculars. It is very dangerous for your eyesight. Once the entire Sun is covered, that is when the eclipse reaches its maximum point, which lasts between 1 and 2 minutes. Then the reverse process occurs and it is uncovered little by little.
These types of phenomena are very spectacular, since in the middle of the day it becomes night and you can even see the brightest stars for a few moments. At this impasse, the temperature also suddenly drops. They are unique phenomena that attract many people who travel there to observe them.
In the tweet above you can see the Airbnb occupancy expected for the night before the eclipse on the map on the right. The red color range coincides directly with the path of the total eclipse.
Here in our house we will be lucky enough to be able to see a total eclipse of the Sun on August 12, 2026. The total eclipse phase will be observed from the south of Catalonia, the north of the Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands. Until then we will have to settle for seeing the photos or following it remotely here.
