Mark your calendars, skygazers.
A 124-mile-wide swath of land stretching from Mexico to Canada will be briefly plunged into darkness on April 8, 2024, in what’s being called the Great North American Total Solar Eclipse.
According to Space.com, U.S. residents have only seen 21 total solar eclipses since the country’s 1776 formation, and even fewer have been visible across such a large portion of the nation.
Prior to the most recent cross-country total solar eclipse in 2017, U.S. skywatchers had not experienced the phenomenon since 1918, and they’ll have to wait until 2045 to see it again, the space and astronomy news outlet reported.
Specifically, the event will begin at 10:51 a.m. local time in Mazatlán, Mexico, and move northeast across the continent, reaching its northernmost continental point in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada at around 4:07 p.m. local time.
Meanwhile, totality – when the moon fully covers the sun and the sky goes dark – is expected to occur over central Texas at around 1:30 p.m. local time and last as many as 4 minutes and 26 seconds, Space.com reported.
According to The Washington Post, residents in the far northwestern suburb of San Antonio will experience totality, as well as Fort Worth and Dallas. But that’s only the beginning.
“The shadow will move northeast, clipping the southeastern corner of Oklahoma as it cruises into Arkansas at more than 1,700 mph. A chunk of Missouri and Illinois will fall in the western reaches of the path, including Carbondale, Ill. — ground zero for the 2017 eclipse,” the newspaper reported, noting that Paducah, Kentucky, and Evansville, Indiana, may also make prime viewing spots.
Meanwhile, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Toledo, Buffalo, Rochester, New York, and Burlington, Vermont, also are in the path of totality, including Niagara Falls, which is slated to experience three minutes and 28 seconds of totality just after 3:17 p.m. local time, according to the Post.