There are officially 10 days left until Europe’s biggest total solar eclipse in nearly 30 years
There are officially just 10 days left until Europe’s biggest total solar eclipse in nearly 30 years is expected to happen.
The major celestial event will be visible across the continent on August 12, with the likes of Spain, Iceland and Greenland expected to be able to view it in totality.
The rest of Europe will get a partial eclipse, with the UK and Ireland set to experience a large partial eclipse which will cover over 90% of the sun.
The last time this part of the world experienced a major solar eclipse was back in August 1999, with France, Germany, Austria, and parts of the UK getting a spectacular partial-to-total view.
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Now, 27 years later, this upcoming solar eclipse will kick off a very rare three years of major solar events in Europe as another total eclipse will follow in August 2027, which will be visible in southern Spain.
After that, in January 2028, we can expect the annular ‘ring of fire’ eclipse.
There is a lot more solar activity happening than usual and this is down to the fact that the sun has reached its solar maximum.
In other words, the yellow dwarf star at the center of our solar system has reached its peak period of activity within its 11-year solar cycle.
Typically, this can be signaled by high numbers of sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections.
Now that the sun has reached the end of its cycle, its magnetic field will flip, beginning its shift toward solar minimum, which hasn’t happened since 2013.
It’s not immediate but instead is a gradual transition, with the increased activity from the sun and its solar flares causing geomagnetic storms on Earth, resulting in the northern and southern light displays.
This has already been occurring in the last two years, with it being considered a particularly bumpy phase for magnetic activity.
While the solar maximum sees magnetic storms hit a few times each year, when it's instead the solar minimum, which is the period with the least activity, we might go a few years between storms.
The magnetic field shift is an important part of the sun’s cycle as it can also help to shield the Earth from galactic cosmic rays, which are high-energy subatomic particles which can damage spacecraft outside of the atmosphere.
With just 10 days left before Europe witnesses the solar eclipse, if you’re on the continent, the path of totality will follow across eastern Greenland, western Iceland, northern and central Spain, and a small northeastern corner of Portugal. These regions will experience total darkness.