A small group of people enjoyed the partial solar eclipse at sunset this Monday from the Teide observatory, in Izaña (Tenerife), where they were privileged witnesses of a phenomenon that has only been visible in Spain from the westernmost islands of the Canary Islands. , because in Galicia the clouds ruined the moment.
To achieve their objective, those attending this nature spectacle, mostly linked to the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), have overcome the rain and wind along the winding road that advances from the coast towards the base of the volcano, crossing the thick sea of clouds that surrounds the island.
The peaks of the Canary Islands always reward those who look at the sky, even for a few fleeting minutes, so there were few better places to observe the phenomenon than the Teide and Roque de Los Muchachos observatories, even further west, on La Palma. And while the sun descended in the last moments of daylight, at 8:17 p.m. (Canary time) the reward arrived: just over ten minutes of a phenomenon in which the Moon covered barely 5% of the Sun.
Despite the anecdotal nature of this astronomical event, the expectation has been due to the fact that until 2187 and 2353 another one will not be visible in its entirety in the archipelago, when a total solar eclipse will occur during the day. On the other hand, they will be luckier and will be able to enjoy it in 2026 in the north of Spain and the Balearic Islands, and in 2027, in the south.
Once the zenith of the eclipse was reached, emotion took over the group of people who resisted the strong wind and cold. Most of them are people who spend their working day looking at the sky, but that doesn't stop them from being amazed, as is the case of astrophysicist and IAC disseminator Irene Puerto Giménez.
Puerto Giménez told EFE that, for her, this phenomenon has great power, because "it makes us aware of the movements that occur in the sky" and that are sometimes difficult to measure. “The Earth is spinning backwards. Although we see the Sun setting, it is not moving, we are the ones spinning at 1,800 kilometers per hour, and at the same time we are watching how the Moon rotates around the Earth and comes between us and the Sun. All of this in real time,” the IAC researcher detailed.
