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For the first time in more than a century, a total solar eclipse is coming to mainland Spain with an even longer encore next summer.
Toss in a crescendoing meteor shower and a six-planet parade on the same day, and the heavens will be overflowing with awe.
Daytime darkness will descend Aug. 12 across the Iberian Peninsula close to sunset — plus slivers of Greenland and Iceland — as the sun, moon and Earth align perfectly in the sky.
Starting near the North Pole before tracking south, totality will last up to two minutes and 18 seconds, an appetizer for an even longer solar show next year — a 6 ½-minute extravaganza that will sweep from Spain to North Africa and the Middle East.
It will take 1 ½ hours for the umbra, or moon’s sun-blocking shadow, to race along the 5,130-mile (8,260-kilometer) course, most of it over an empty Atlantic. Maximum totality will occur off Iceland’s west coast. By the time it reaches a small patch of Portugal and then Spain with its massive crowds, totality will have dwindled to a minute or so. The spectacle will end in the Mediterranean.
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