Today, Saturday, October 14, an annular solar eclipse can be observed in large areas of America, allowing millions of people to enjoy one of the most impressive spectacles in nature. The phenomenon can be followed live through the numerous broadcasts that will be offered online.
The eclipse will be annular, and will occur when the Sun, Moon and Earth are perfectly aligned. Then, and for a few brief moments, the lunar disk will hide the solar disk from the perspective of our planet. However, unlike what happens in a total eclipse, the Moon will not be able to completely cover the Sun. The result, at the peak of the eclipse, will be the image in the sky of a bright ring surrounding the dark silhouette of the disk. lunar, in what is known as the ring of fire.
In its orbital movement around the Earth, the position of the Moon varies and, with it, also the relative situation with respect to our planet and the Sun. Occasionally, our satellite comes between the Sun and the Earth, which gives rise to solar eclipses.
There are three types of solar eclipses. When the alignment of the Sun, Moon and Earth is not perfect, and the lunar disk only covers part of the solar disk, a so-called partial eclipse occurs. On the contrary, if the three bodies are in precise alignment, the most impressive eclipses are generated: total and annular eclipses. The difference between these two types of eclipses lies in the relative size of the Sun and Moon in our sky.
Simply due to a chance effect, the solar and lunar disks seen from Earth are almost the same size. Indeed, although the Moon is about 400 times smaller than the Sun, it is approximately 400 times greater than the distance between the Moon and our planet. This fortunate coincidence allows the Moon to occasionally completely obscure the solar disk (total eclipse).
However, the elliptical orbit with which the Moon moves around the Earth means that the distance to our satellite is not always the same, which translates into variations in the apparent size of the lunar disk in the sky. These variations can reach approximately 12%, and the result is that in certain solar eclipses, and despite the alignment being correct, the lunar disk fails to completely hide the Sun, placing itself concentrically on top and exposing, around it, a circular crown of light. They are called annular eclipses.
The path of this afternoon's annular eclipse will cross areas of the western and southern United States, as well as the central and southern parts of the American continent. Specifically, the maximum phase (called annularity) will begin in the state of Oregon (United States) around 9:17 a.m. (local time, 6:17 p.m. Spanish peninsular time), and will move towards the east coast of Texas, passing through cities as important as Albuquerque (New Mexico) or San Antonio (Texas).
Subsequently, the path of the eclipse will take it to the area of the Gulf of Mexico and towards the Yucatan Peninsula. It will then pass through Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama before entering Colombia and Brazil. Some of the cities that will be able to enjoy the maximum phase will be Belize, Olanchito (Honduras), Aguadulce (Panama), Cali (Colombia), or Natal (Brazil). Finally, the eclipse will end in Atlantic waters, near the east coast of Brazil, around 5:43 p.m. local time.
Due to the geometry of the Earth and Moon's orbits, between two and five solar eclipses occur each year. Among the following, the one that will take place next year stands out, specifically on April 8, which will be a total that will cross widely populated regions of Mexico and the United States.
The show will arrive in Spain on August 12, 2026, when the totality phase of a solar eclipse crosses, in a large band of visibility, from the north of the Peninsula towards the Balearic Islands.
That day, and during the minutes that the totality phase will last (depending on the location of the observer), the daytime sky will darken almost completely and even the brightest stars will be visible. The ambient temperature will drop (typically up to about 5 degrees), a drop that can be clearly perceived. In the sky, the dark disk of the Moon, completely obscuring the Sun, will appear surrounded by the halo of diffuse light from the solar corona.
The phenomenon will be repeated on August 2, 2027 in southern Spain, and will be visible as a whole in most of the province of Cádiz, in Ceuta and in the south of the provinces of Málaga, Granada and Almería.
And on January 26, 2028, a new solar eclipse, this time annular, will once again cross the Iberian Peninsula from the south and towards the Mediterranean.
Observers who are fortunate enough to be able to contemplate today's eclipse should avoid doing so with the naked eye, nor with instruments that are not approved for solar observation. Some methods found in popular culture, such as the use of tinted glass or x-ray films, are extremely dangerous and can cause serious and permanent injuries.
