Eclipse…

 

I love a solar eclipse. I really do. It’s probably one of the reasons why I studied cosmology at university.

I first became fascinated by them when I was 10 years old. It was on the news. On 10th July 1972. There had been a total eclipse over Russia and Canada. So I ran outside imagining that I could still see it too. I couldn’t of course. But I’d been bitten by the eclipse bug.

Sidebar: ‘You’re So Vain’ by Carly Simon actually references that 1972 solar eclipse! The song was released four months later with this lyric…

“Then you flew your lear jet up to Nova Scotia 

To see the total eclipse of the Sun.”

So what is a solar eclipse? It’s basically when the Moon moves in front of the Sun - usually referring to us, when viewed on Earth.

The fact that we get to experience a total solar eclipse on Earth at all is an incredible cosmological coincidence. 

The Sun is 150 million kilometres (93 million miles) away from the Earth - 400 times further away than the Moon. 

But the Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun - meaning they appear exactly the same size in our sky.

So what do you see?

When the Sun is fully eclipsed, the black disk of the Moon is surrounded by faint feathers of light waving as if in an invisible cosmic breeze. 

A closer view reveals them to be more like sheets of flame pulsing out from the shadow of the Moon. 

This luminous flare radiating from the blackness is the corona of the Sun - superheated jets of gas thrown thousands of miles out into space.

Back here on Earth, while in the dusk of the Moon's shadow, everything is uncannily still: birds go quiet, thinking it is time to roost, while nocturnal insects wake up and begin to chirp. And people cheer. And clap. And generally go crazy.  

It's a singular feeling that I have travelled around the world to experience. Most recently to Dallas, Texas in 2024. 

This time, the last place on land to view the solar eclipse will be on the Balearic Islands, before the shadow disappears in the Mediterranean Sea as the Sun sets. 

So guess where I’m heading? Yup, Ibiza. 

For most people in the path of the total solar eclipse, the Sun will be hidden for less than two minutes - much shorter than the four minutes we got to experience in Dallas. In Ibiza we’re expecting to see the total solar eclipse for about 110 glorious seconds with the peak at around 20:31 local time (19:31 BST).  

For that brief moment I shall be in ecstasy. 

And then daylight will return as quickly as it left and the world will continue as if nothing has happened.