North America is preparing for a total solar eclipse on a never-before-seen scale.
On April 8 this year, millions of people in northern Mexico, the U.S. and southeastern Canada will experience totality — darkness in the day and the chance to see the sun’s corona with the naked eye — yet few appreciate how rare and unique this event will be.
Here’s why it could be the best for hundreds of years — and for many years into the future:
Related: The best places in the US to experience totality during the April 2024 solar eclipse
1. It will be the longest U.S total solar eclipse since 1806
Experience this total solar eclipse from Mexico, you may be able to get 4 minutes and 28 seconds of totality. That will reduce as the moon’s dark central shadow speeds up and becomes stretched as it moves from southwest to northeast, but on the U.S.-Mexico border, 4 minutes 26 seconds is possible.
The last time a totality of this length occurred in North America was on June 16, 1806, when a total solar eclipse lasting up to 4 minutes 55 seconds surged across the U.S. from Baja California to Cape Cod via Albuquerque, Kansas City, Cleveland and Boston. It was promoted to Bostonians by the book Darkness At Noon. That event is also known as Tecumseh’s Eclipse. According to eclipse-chaser Bill Kramer, two leaders of the Shawnee people predicted the eclipse and witnessed it from Greenville, Ohio — which on April 8 will experience totality for 3 minutes 55 seconds. It will be Ohio’s first total solar eclipse since 1806.
2. It will occur at solar maximum
Anyone who has seen the solar corona with their naked eyes during totality will know that it is always an utterly spectacular sight. During solar minimum — when our star’s magnetic activity is at its lowest in its roughly 11-year cycle — it has an asymmetrical, thorny look, as it did during the last total solar eclipse in North America on August 21, 2017. That will not be the case on April 8, when the sun’s corona will seem larger, more symmetrical and sunflower-like. It’s a consequence of magnetic activity in the sun, and sometime this year, the sun is predicted to reach solar maximum.
The last time a total solar eclipse visible from North America coincided with solar maximum was on February 26, 1979, when totality lasted as long as 2 minutes 49…
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