The Sun has a date with the Moon. On Tuesday, a partial eclipse will cross much of the Northern Hemisphere, from Iceland to India to France. For about two hours, the Moon will come to hide a piece of the Sun but not enough, on the other hand, to completely darken the sky.
According the French Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation (IMCCE) of the Paris Observatory, the phenomenon will start Tuesday morning in Iceland to end off India in the afternoon, crossing Europe, North-East Africa and the Middle East.
For an eclipse to be total and plunge us completely into darkness, the shadow of the Moon must touch the surface of the Earth. This time around, that won’t be the case. “It will not be possible anywhere on the surface of the globe to witness the total disappearance of the Sun”confirms the Paris Observatory in a press release.
At maximum eclipse, predicted over Kazakhstan, the Sun will be 82.2% obscured, “but not enough yet to have a perception of darkness” in broad daylight, told AFP Florent Deleflie, astronomer at the Observatory. Because “to begin to have a feeling of darkness in the sky, to perceive a kind of cold light, you need at least 95% obscuration of the Sun”he adds.
In France, the eclipse will remain below 20%. It will begin around 11:15 a.m. in the north of the country, 11:30 a.m. in the south, and end around 1:00 p.m. According to the Paris Observatory, it is from the city of Strasbourg that the eclipse will be most visible. It will only be perceptible on condition that the sky is clear, by looking at the solar star with adapted and new glasses, to avoid burns to the eye. The use of instruments such as binoculars or telescopes with filters, available in the centers that will organize observations, will also be possible.
Tuesday will be the 16th partial solar eclipse of the 21st century in the world. In France, the last partial eclipse dates back to June 10, 2021. On August 12, 2026, a new eclipse will occur, this time total, in several areas of the world. But not in France, where the obscuration of the solar disk will be 92% from Paris and 96% from Marseille, according to the IMCCE.