Today, a solar eclipse will cut across the entire United States. And wherever you are, you will be able to see it. Even though the “totality” — the area where the sun is completely blocked out by the moon — is only 70 miles wide, the whole country (even Alaska and Hawaii) will experience a partial eclipse.
A solar eclipse is coming to America. Here’s what you’ll see where you live.
Brian Resnick was Vox’s science and health editor and is the co-creator of Unexplainable, Vox’s podcast about unanswered questions in science.
This is what you’ll see, and the time you’ll see it, in your zip code.
We recommend punching in a few different ones to see how the eclipse experience will vary across the country. Salem, Oregon (97301), is going to see a total eclipse. Downtown Los Angeles (90012) will see 62 percent of the sun blocked at the peak. In Lake Charles, Louisiana (70601), it’ll be 71 percent.
The eclipse animation relies on data provided by The United States Naval Observatory and uses entering and exiting vertex angles along with the maximum obscuration percentage to calculate the trajectory of the moon across the sun. Maximum obscuration percentages in the animation are depicted using the nearest whole percent. The map obscuration data was provided by NASA.
To get the bird’s-eye view of all the different shapes the eclipse will make against the sun around the country, check out this short video, also from NASA.
Ernie Wright/NASA
Just be careful: Even on eclipse day, it’s not safe to stare directly into the sun without special viewing glasses.
Further reading:
By Brian Resnick and Joss Fong
By Eliza Barclay
By Brian Resnick
