Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024
A total solar eclipse will take place at the Moon's ascending node on Monday, April 8, 2024, visible across North America and dubbed the Great North American Eclipse (also Great American Total Solar Eclipse and Great American Eclipse) by some of the media. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby 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. Occurring only one day after perigee (perigee on April 7, 2024), the Moon's apparent diameter will be larger than usual. With a magnitude of 1.0566, its longest duration of totality will be of four minutes and 28.13 seconds near the town of Nazas, Durango, Mexico (~6 km north), and the nearby city of Torreón, Coahuila. This eclipse will be the first total solar eclipse to be visible in Canada since February 26, 1979, the first  in Mexico since July 11, 1991, and the first in the U.S. since August 21, 2017. It will be the only total solar eclipse in the 21st century where totality will be visible in the three-state set of Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The next solar eclipse occurs October 2, 2024. Visibility. Totality will be visible in a narrow strip in North America, beginning at the Pacific coast, then ascending in a northeasterly direction through Mexico, the United States, and Canada, before ending in the Atlantic Ocean. Mexico. In Mexico, totality will pass through the states of Sinaloa  (including Mazatlán), Durango (including Durango and Gómez Palacio) and Coahuila (including Torreón, Matamoros, Monclova, Sabinas, Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras). United States. In the United States, totality will be visible through the states of Texas (including parts of San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth and all of Arlington, Dallas, Killeen, Temple, Texarkana, Tyler and Waco), Oklahoma, Arkansas (including Hot Springs, Jonesboro, and Little Rock), Missouri, Illinois (including Carbondale, where it intersects the path of the 2017 eclipse), Kentucky, Indiana (including Bloomington, Evansville, Indianapolis, Muncie, Terre Haute, and Vincennes), Ohio (including Akron, Dayton, Lima, Roundhead, Toledo, Cleveland, Warren, Newton Falls and  Austintown), Michigan (extreme southeastern corner of Monroe County), Pennsylvania (including Erie), Upstate New York (including Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Rochester, Syracuse, the Adirondacks, Potsdam, and Plattsburgh), and northern Vermont (including Burlington), New Hampshire, and Maine, with the line of totality going almost directly over the state's highest point Mount Katahdin. The largest city entirely in the path will be Dallas, Texas. It will be the second total eclipse visible from the central United States in just 7 years, after the eclipse of August 21, 2017 (see "Related Eclipses", below). Totality will pass through the town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, home of  Neil Armstrong, the first person to set foot upon the Moon. Canada. In Canada, the path of totality will pass over parts of Southern Ontario (including Leamington, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Kingston, Prince Edward County, and Cornwall), parts of southern Quebec (including Montreal, Sherbrooke, Saint-Georges and Lac-Mégantic), central New Brunswick (including Fredericton and Miramichi), western Prince Edward Island (including Tignish and Summerside), the northern tip of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and central Newfoundland (including Gander and Grand Falls-Windsor). Then, it will vanish on the eastern Atlantic coast of Newfoundland. (Some of the Canadian cities listed, such as  Hamilton and Montreal, are on an edge of the path of totality. Windsor, London, Toronto and Ottawa lie just north of the path of totality, and Moncton lies just south of it.) Europe. The eclipse will be partially seen in Svalbard (Norway), in Iceland, Ireland, west parts of Great Britain, north-west parts of Spain and Portugal, the Azores and Canary Islands. Americas. The eclipse will be partially seen in all Central America countries, from Belize to Panama, and in all Greater Antilles (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Jamaica). Related eclipses. The path of this eclipse will cross  the path of the prior total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, with the intersection of the two paths being in southern Illinois, in Makanda, just south of Carbondale. The cities of Benton, Carbondale, Chester, Harrisburg, Marion, and Metropolis in Illinois; Cape Girardeau, Farmington, and Perryville in Missouri, as well as Paducah, Kentucky, will be within a roughly intersection of the paths of totality of both the 2017 and 2024 eclipses, therefore earning the distinction of being witness to two total solar eclipses within a span of seven years. Other solar eclipses crossing the United States. Notable total and annular  solar eclipse crossing the United States from 1900 to 2050: