A Total Solar Eclipse Is Coming to Europe and the Arctic in August 2026

On August 12, 2026, a total solar eclipse will travel from northern Siberia southward across the Arctic, the North Atlantic, Greenland, Iceland, and the Iberian Peninsula. During a total solar eclipse, the Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun and blocks the Sun completely, turning daytime into brief darkness. At its peak, the Moon's shadow will create up to 2 minutes and 18 seconds of total darkness along a path 294 km wide, at a latitude of about 65.2°N. NASA's eclipse catalog, maintained by Fred Espenak at the GSFC Planetary Systems Laboratory, provides the official numbers for this event (NASA Eclipse Web Site).

The path where the Sun is fully blocked begins in far northern Siberia, crosses the Arctic Ocean and North Atlantic, then passes over Greenland, Iceland, Spain, and a small corner of Portugal. The National Solar Observatory confirms this geographic sequence (NSO). NASA offers an interactive Google map showing the edges of the eclipse path and its center line (NASA SEsearch Map), along with a detailed table of coordinates for the Moon's shadow along the route (NASA Path Table).

Outside the main path, people across the rest of Europe and parts of North America and Africa will see a partial eclipse, where the Moon covers only part of the Sun (NASA Eclipse Web Site). AccuWeather notes the eclipse will be visible across much of Spain and partially in parts of western Europe (AccuWeather). PBS NewsHour, reporting on August 12, describes totality starting near the North Pole before sweeping southward across Greenland, Iceland, Spain, and a patch of Portugal (PBS NewsHour). Reuters, publishing its mapping coverage on August 11, highlights Iceland and Spain as the main European viewing targets (Reuters).

This eclipse is one of four in 2026. The others are an annular solar eclipse on February 17 (where a ring of sunlight stays visible around the Moon), a total lunar eclipse on March 3, and a partial lunar eclipse on August 28 (NASA Eclipse Web Site). It also sets the stage for an even bigger event the following year. On August 2, 2027, another total solar eclipse will occur, along with an annular solar eclipse on February 6 and penumbral lunar eclipses on February 20, July 18, and August 17. Eclipses follow a repeating pattern called the saros cycle, which comes around roughly every 18 years. This pattern places Spain and North Africa in a favorable position for two Augusts in a row.

The way this eclipse lines up in space affects what people on the ground will see. The Moon's shadow passes well north of Earth's center, which sends the main track through the Arctic before it reaches Spain. This means the longest darkness happens up north near 65.2°N latitude, while viewers in Spain get a shorter total eclipse and a Sun sitting lower in the sky.

This is also a relatively shallow total eclipse. The Moon appears only slightly larger than the Sun at peak, which means the shadow it casts is narrow and the total darkness does not last long. The 2-minute-18-second maximum reflects this. For comparison, some total eclipses can produce more than four minutes of darkness. The 294 km path is wider than typical because at high latitudes the shadow hits Earth at an angle, spreading it over a larger area.

In the Arctic, the Sun sits high in the sky during the eclipse, but those remote locations are hard to reach. Spain is the most accessible place to see it, though observers there will face a late-afternoon Sun low on the western horizon. Since the eclipse happens in summer, the Sun stays above the horizon across much of the Arctic path. Weather will vary along the route, with clouds over the Atlantic and Iceland posing the biggest risk to viewing.

NASA's eclipse catalog, maintained by Espenak at the GSFC Planetary Systems Laboratory, provides the standard reference for this event. Its interactive map and coordinate tables are the primary tools for planning eclipse viewing. The data come from long-established mathematical predictions of the Moon's and Sun's positions, refined over decades of observation and modeling.

The broader context here is one of preparation. This is the first total solar eclipse visible from Europe since March 20, 2015, which passed through the Faroe Islands and Svalbard. The 2026 event brings totality to Iceland and Spain, both accessible places with good infrastructure for visitors and scientists. The August 2, 2027 follow-on eclipse will pass through southern Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East, giving observers along the western Mediterranean a second chance. For researchers who study the Sun's outer atmosphere and how eclipses affect Earth's upper atmosphere, the 2026–2027 pairing offers a rare opportunity to collect data over European and North African skies two years in a row.