Caoimhín's Content

Today we are going to be taking a look into the future to take a look at another solar eclipses. Of course, this year we have solar eclipses coming up and you can take a look in one of my previous posts on this website to see a quick review of them. Also, if you can stick around with this website, I will be making more videos on them in the future as we get closer to them. We have an annular solar eclipse coming up this year, best visible from down around Antarctica and southern New Zealand, in February. Then we have a total solar eclipse which is going to be visible across parts of Europe, with a path reaching down to Spain from Iceland, that’s coming up in August this year, August 2026. However, that’s not the eclipse that lots of people are talking about. Even though there are two eclipses coming up this year, one of which is a total solar eclipse, none of them are the eclipse of the century. The eclipse of the century, at least that’s what people are calling it, is coming up in 2027. It’s going to be best seen from down in Egypt, around the coast of the Red Sea. We are taking a look not too far into the future, we’re going all the way forward to 2027, we’re going all the way forward to August 2nd.

Even from not quite the right location or the right time, from Egypt on the right date, the New Moon is almost in front of the Sun already. By moving through time we can get the Moon and Sun to line up, but not quite a total eclipse from where I initially set the view. Of course, this is because solar eclipses are at their best only for reasonably narrow portions of the Earth, so you do need to be pretty exact when you’re getting to the right place. My initial guess was a few hundred kilometers off, and there was still a good partial eclipse visible. We’re going move in the right direction and hopefully get into a better position to see this eclipse. From a close position, it looks like the Moon comes in, almost makes a total eclipse and then slides off again. Going to the right location, we’re at 25° 5′ north and 33° 2′ east. This puts us a little bit closer to the Red Sea. Very close to midday, we get the total solar eclipse. This what people are calling the eclipse of the century and this is where it’s going to look best, right down in Egypt, quite near to the edge of Egypt. Still a few tens of meters off the center point of the shadow, but the eclipse looks perfect. During totality, we’re seeing Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and even Sirius! We’re seeing quite a lot, four objects visible during the day, during the eclipse, is a lot. This is a total solar eclipse, like so many that we’ve seen before. What makes this eclipse special, the reason people are calling it the eclipse of the century is because of how long it lasts. The length, the duration of an eclipse, depends on many different factors.

I mentioned that the eclipse we’re getting in August this year is going to be quite a good one, because the Moon is going to be quite close to us. for the annular eclipse that we’re getting in February, the Moon is quite far away from us. In August 2027, the Moon is almost at perigee, almost at its closest position to the Earth. It just so happens that the Earth is very nearly at aphelion, our furthest position from the Sun, having occurred just a bit earlier in July. This lines up to make the Moon appear the biggest it can possibly appear, the equivalent of a Supermoon but with a New Moon rather than a Full Moon, and the opposite for the Sun. We’re as far away from the Sun as we’re going to get all year, making the Sun apparently its smallest.

We’re going to move backwards from the end of the eclipse, to see how long the full process takes. We want to have the Moon just barely touching the outer limb of the Sun, just as the eclipse ends. We’re getting that there at about 1:20, I don’t know if we’re getting any eclipse details here, we’re not, we might if we click on the Sun. Continuing backwards in time, the Moon is going to come in and cover the Sun entirely. The Moon is just covering the Sun entirely, with total coverage ending at about 12:22. Then we’re going to keep going, the eclipse stays at pretty much total coverage up until about 12:16. Then we’re going to continue all the way out the other side. The Moon appears to be changing direction, it almost looks like the Moon comes in from one side and then leaves from the same side of the Sun. This is because the Moon is pretty much passing over the zenith. Coming back to just about 10:55, the Moon is just touching the Sun again, making this a long eclipse. Once the Moon is over the center, at totality, we’ll get our maximum duration. We’re looking at 6 minutes and 22 seconds, 6 and a half minutes of darkness. I’m sure this is what you’ve seen if you’ve heard about this eclipse. 6 minutes of darkness or 6 minutes of nighttime during the day, makes this eclipse one of the longest. This is the longest eclipse that we’re going to get this century, this is why people are calling it the eclipse of the century. There was a longer eclipse back in the year 743 BC and there will be a longer eclipse all the way ahead in the year 2114.

This is the eclipse that’s causing all of the excitement. If we change location on the planet, we’ll see that this is going to be visible as a partial eclipse from some other locations, including parts of Europe. From roughly southern Spain, or possibly Portugal, and we’re getting quite a good eclipse, 97.11%, give. 97% of the greatest eclipse that we’re going to get this century. Coming all the way back to Ireland, of course, it will be much less, but even here we are still getting a few percent. We’ll see roughly 40% of an eclipse here in Ireland, this is viewing it from the south of Ireland in Cork City.

This is the best eclipse that we’re going to get in the near future, and since the far past. The most the totality of an eclipse could technically be seems to be about 7 and a half minutes, so we’re just a minute off from the longest eclipse we could hypothetically ever get. It won’t, of course, be a total eclipse for many areas of the Earth, but because of the path that this eclipse is takes brings it from around the mid Atlantic, down across Africa and down into the Indian Ocean, this eclipse is going to be visible from a huge portion of the Earth. Lots and lots of people are going to get to see this eclipse because the eclipse is going to be visible from some very populated areas. Thanks to the maximum of the eclipse happening at the edge of Egypt, all of North Africa, and a good portion of central Africa, will get to see it at least partially. Huge portions of the region of the world called the middle east or the near east, whichever you prefer, will see it, all the way down to southern India. Even all the way out here in northern Europe, northwestern Europe, if we’re talking about Ireland, this whole section of the world is going to get to see this eclipse. This is partly because of how long it lasts, and also because of where the Sun and the Moon are in the sky. We can’t see it, but the subsolar point, the place on Earth that’s directly underneath the Sun, is just a little bit lower than then the total point of the eclipse when it is at it’s best. This is nice and close to the equator as well. This is all going to come together to make this eclipse last longer and cover a larger portion of the Earth because of the way it’s lining up with our aphelion, the Moon’s perigee, and where the Sun is in the sky close to the subsolar point. These are a lot of different moving parts, a lot of different factors are coming together here to make this eclipse the best one of the century. Unfortunately, I have spent too long talking about this eclipse, so I’m not going to get a chance to show you some of the other alternative eclipses, which are also quite good.

This is the eclipse of the century, coming up on August 2, best seen from Egypt. Don’t worry, we do have more eclipses coming up this year, 2026, as well. One in February visible mostly from Antarctica, and one in August this year visible from Spain, Iceland and other parts of Europe. We are going to take a look at those other eclipses as well, but we’re going to take a look at some of the other eclipses that challenge this eclipse for length as well. Mostly it is for the length of time that the obscuration lasts. 6 and a half minutes is the longest we’re going to get all century, but it’s not the longest we could get. I hope you join me for a future piece when we explore that. I hope you enjoyed this piece and the description, just in case you don’t get to make it to Egypt in 2027. If you enjoyed this piece, please do like it, if you enjoy this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Thank you very much for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.