Today, the Moon’s shadow will fall across the North Atlantic, sending Greenland, Iceland, and Spain into darkness for a total solar eclipse. This will be the first Iceland has seen since 1954, and the first over Reykjavík in almost six hundred years. Totality will reach Iceland in the afternoon local time and Spain in the evening, just before sunset. Astronomy’s Senior Editor Alison Klesman is on the ground in Iceland and Editor Emeritus and former Editor-in-Chief Dave Eicher is in Spain with our travel partner, Eclipse Traveler. They’ll be filing live updates as the eclipse unfolds.
1:55 p.m. EDT: See the 2027 and 2028 eclipse with Astronomy magazine
Our editors are on the ground in Iceland and Spain today thanks to our travel partner, Eclipse Traveler, which puts together excellent all-inclusive travel packages for total solar eclipses around the world. There’s still time to join us for the next ones — Eclipse Traveler has limited availability left on several 2027 and 2028 tours, each built around expert astronomy guides and front-row access to totality.
2027 Egypt: Cairo, Nile Cruise & Luxor
2028 Australia: Total Solar Eclipse Cruise
2028 Australia: Sydney Total Solar Eclipse Tour
2028 New Zealand & Australia: Total Solar Eclipse Tour
1:49 p.m. EDT: Totality ends in Iceland
Totality has ended as the first sliver of sunlight reappears, and it’s time for eye protection to go back on.
1:48 p.m. EDT: Totality in Iceland
The Moon has fully covered the Sun, and the solar corona is now visible in the darkened sky over Iceland.
1:47 p.m. EDT: Baily’s beads and the diamond ring in Iceland
As the last sliver of sunlight narrows to a thin arc, the Moon breaks it into beads of light, and totality is just moments away.
1:42 p.m. EDT: Crowds gather to view partial eclipse at England’s Jodrell Bank Observatory
1:31 p.m. EDT: Partial eclipse begins in Spain
The Moon starts crossing in front of the Sun over Galicia, in Spain’s northwest corner, marking the eclipse’s first landfall on the Iberian Peninsula.
Totality will follow roughly an hour later, arriving in Galicia around 2:26 P.M. EDT and heading across the peninsula to the Balearic Islands by about 2:31 P.M. EDT — the shadow’s final act on land before it moves over the Mediterranean, just before sunset.
1:18 p.m. EDT: What scientists predict the corona will look like today
A team at Predictive Science Inc. is modeling what the corona will look like with a live forecast. Their system pulls in near-real-time measurements of the Sun’s surface magnetic field and feeds them into a model that simulates the corona and the solar wind together, continuously updating as new data arrives.
This year’s version is the group’s highest-resolution run yet. It also stretches farther than any previous prediction — reaching from the Sun’s atmosphere all the way out to Earth’s orbit, one astronomical unit away. That means the team isn’t just forecasting what the corona will look like from the ground: they’ve generated matching predictions for what missions across the solar system should see, including Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter, PUNCH, and STEREO-A.
The team’s latest coronal prediction, oriented for the view from Palencia, Spain, has been updating continuously at eclipse.predsci.com.
1:05 p.m. EDT: Clouds and rain in Iceland
In a post on X about an hour ago, Mexican Geologist Sergio Almazán shared the weather conditions on the ground in Iceland ahead of today’s eclipse, writing:
“Just under an hour before the Total Solar Eclipse begins, Iceland has been covered in dense clouds! We’re in Grundarfjörður, and unfortunately it’s raining. Nevertheless, knowing that the weather here tends to change suddenly, we haven’t lost hope, and in any case, we’ll start the broadcast on time.” (Translated from Spanish)
12:47 p.m. EDT: Partial eclipse begins in Iceland
The Moon has just begun crossing in front of the Sun as seen from Iceland, marking the start of today’s eclipse.
12:27 p.m. EDT: How to watch safely
You must wear certified eclipse glasses during all phases of the eclipse, with one exception: totality. It is only safe to remove your glasses when the Sun is completely blocked, but you must put them back on the instant the first ray of sunlight reappears. If you are viewing a partial eclipse outside the path of totality, keep your glasses on the entire time—looking at the Sun is never safe if any portion of it is exposed.
If you’re not in the path of totality, NASA is livestreaming the eclipse starting at 1:15 p.m. EDT, with ESA, and the Virtual Telescope Project, also carrying live coverage.
12:05 p.m. EDT: Who can see a partial eclipse?
Inside the path of totality, the Moon fully covers the Sun’s disk — the only moment it’s safe to look up without protective eyewear. Everywhere else, from most of Europe to parts of Canada and the northern U.S., observers are seeing a partial eclipse, where a sliver of the Sun stays uncovered.
11:55 a.m. EDT: Where today’s eclipse will — and won’t — be total
The path of totality is a narrow band roughly 183 miles (294 km) wide. Starting over a remote northeastern corner of Russia, it runs across eastern Greenland before curving south to the west coast of Iceland, arcing across Spain, and ending over the Mediterranean.
In Iceland, the Moon’s shadow reaches the shores of the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve at 1:43 p.m. EDT, before heading south across the Westfjords, the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Reykjavík, and the Reykjanes Peninsula. The single longest totality along the entire path — 2 minutes and 18 seconds — occurs over the water of Breiðafjörður Bay on Iceland’s western coast. Totality lasts longest on land at Látrabjarg in the Westfjords, at 2 minutes and 13 seconds; in downtown Reykjavík, it’s a brief 1 minute.
From there, the shadow advances across the Atlantic, reaching northern Spain about 35 minutes later. As sunset closes in, the Sun will hang lower in the sky for totality in Spain. In some cities, the Sun will set fully before the partial eclipse ends. Totality runs about 1 minute 45 seconds in León and fading to just over a minute near Vitoria-Gasteiz which lies along the path’s northern most edge.
