GoKawiilIt’s happening again. Two years after the last total solar eclipse, today’s event brought another spectacular sight, along with a rare bonus: For some observers, the eclipse coincided with sunset, creating an extraordinary view. (Sorry, North Americans, you were mostly left out.)
The total eclipse was visible only from a few places: Greenland, Iceland, the northern half of Spain and a corner of Portugal. Much of Europe and a sizable portion of northern Africa saw a partial solar eclipse around sunset, with tens of millions of people witnessing either a partial or total eclipse at sunset.
Russia had the most unusual experience. The eclipse began at sunrise near the uninhabited Taymyr Peninsula and traveled across the globe throughout the day. By sunset, people on the other side of Russia were once again able to see the eclipse, making Russia the only country to experience the event at both sunrise and sunset.
How often do sunset eclipses happen?
Sunset eclipses don’t occur very often, at least where people can see them. There are two reasons for this.
The first is that solar eclipses usually only last for a few hours, and the timing for that being right at sunset isn’t terribly common.
The other reason is that solar eclipses have long paths, and sometimes those paths cut through the ocean or places where people don’t live. In the last 15 years, only a handful of total eclipses sit in that Venn diagram of occurring late enough in the day to happen at sunset, while also taking place where humans can see it.
The most recent sunset eclipse in North America was in 2014, but it was only a partial eclipse. South America’s most recent one was in July 2019, where people in Chile and Argentina had the best view of a total solar eclipse happening at sunset, while most of the rest of the country had a partial view. Asia’s most recent was in December 2019.
In short, this is a once-in-a-decade event for most of the world.
The path of this year’s solar eclipse took it across the northern portions of Earth before ending in Europe. North Americans didn’t see much. NASA
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