Visualizations by
Ernie Wright
Released on March 13, 2015
On March 20, 2015, the shadow of the Moon crosses the surface of the Earth, creating a total solar eclipse. The eclipse occurs on the date of the March equinox, the start of spring in the northern hemisphere.
From well beyond the Moon's far side, the shadow appears circular. The central black dot is the umbra, where the Sun is completely covered by the Moon. The fainter, much larger shadow is the penumbra, where the Sun is only partially obscured.
Viewed from overhead, the umbra is quite elongated. It hits the Earth at a glancing angle, beginning at a point south of Greenland and departing very near the north pole. The Faroe Islands and the Svalbard archipeligo are in the path of the umbra, but the umbra just misses Iceland, and it crosses no other populated land.
The penumbra covers all of Europe and extends to north Africa and across most of Russia. Everyone in those places will see a partial eclipse.
Both astronauts and robotic probes have witnessed solar eclipses from space. For the annular eclipse in May of 2012, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter turned its narrow-angle camera away from the Moon and toward Earth, capturing four still images of the Moon's shadow as it traveled from Japan to the Aleutian Islands and the west coast of the United States.