During the total solar eclipse on 12 August, scientists from around the world will have their eyes – and scientific instruments – on the sun. But even if you aren’t a scientist, you can help in their investigations, both during the eclipse and year-round.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the sun and moon line up just right so that the moon blocks out the entire disc of the sun from the perspective of Earth. It is a huge cosmic coincidence that both the sun and the moon happen to be just the right size and at the right distance to give us such a spectacle, and a scientifically useful one at that.

On 12 August, a total eclipse will be visible over parts of Europe and the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, with a partial eclipse covering much of Europe, Canada, north-west Africa and parts of the US. An eclipse like this one is visible from somewhere on Earth just once every 18 months approximately, so during each eclipse, scientists rush out to gather as much data as they can. Here are some ways that you can help out:

1. Record shadow bands from the path of totality: In the moments before and after a total solar eclipse, strange phenomena called shadow bands billow across the ground. These bands are caused by the combination of Earth’s atmosphere and the hidden disc of the sun – it is similar to the effect that causes more distant stars to twinkle. If you are in the path of totality, all you have to do to see them is set out a white sheet or piece of cardboard perpendicular to the direction of the sun. To , which aims to quantify how shadow bands differ based on altitude and distance from the centre of totality, just set up a camera to film the sheet.

2. Photograph the sun with your smartphone: The sun is very nearly spherical, but it isn’t perfect. One of the best ways to measure its shape with precision is to have lots of pictures taken from lots of different locations – that’s what does. It’s a smartphone app that you can set up and leave running as you enjoy watching the eclipse, and it will take carefully timed pictures to capture a phenomenon called Baily’s Beads, or the diamond ring effect. When the very last of the sun is about to be covered by the moon, the lunar landscape lets through tiny points of light, which shine along its edge. The same happens when the other side of the moon is just about to let the sun shine past it again, and these points of light are Baily’s Beads. When lots of photos of the beads, all precisely geolocated, are combined with a map of the lunar topography, that can give us an extraordinarily precise measurement of how far the disc of the sun is from a perfect circle.

3. Measure the darkening of the sky during the eclipse: Even if you are only going to see a partial eclipse, you can still help with scientific research. The Gaia4Sustainability project requires a little bit more equipment and set-up time, but once you have it sorted, you can leave it running all year round and keep collecting useful data. It consists of a small device with a bunch of sensors on it to measure the brightness of the sky and other meteorological factors, and the overarching goal of the programme is to measure light pollution so we can better understand its effects. But during the eclipse, the same sensors can be used to , and the more different spots the team has data from, the more they will be able to learn about atmospheric dynamics during eclipses.

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4. Hunt for sun-grazing comets: As is the case for pretty much all astronomical events, a huge portion of the world won’t be able to see August’s total eclipse at all. Not to worry! There are still ways to get involved in solar science. In the , you can download satellite pictures of the sun and look for moving objects on its outskirts. Some of the objects will be comets skimming past the sun, and once researchers know those comets are there, they can do more detailed research. A huge proportion of the known comets were discovered through Sungrazer. All it takes is a computer, an internet connection and some spare time.

5. Join a DEB observation team for next year: If you want to do something a bit more involved, the might be more up your street. It’s an scheme where teams receive training and some relatively basic equipment to observe eclipses across the path of totality, building up a huge repository of data that can then be used to study the evolution of the corona, the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere. Because of the training required, it is too late to join or create a DEB team for this year, but if you are going to be able to spot the 2027 eclipse that will sweep over northern Africa, you can sign up ahead of time.

Even during the eclipse, you shouldn’t look directly at the sun without a solar filter or eclipse glasses to protect your eyes.

On 12 August, a total solar eclipse will sweep across parts of Europe and the Atlantic ocean as the moon passes between Earth and the sun, blocking out sunlight. Parts of the US and Africa, along with the entire UK and much of Europe and Canada, will see a partial solar eclipse.

Where can I see the eclipse?

Totality, which occurs when the moon lines up perfectly with the disc of the sun and blocks it out entirely, will begin in Russia around midday before sweeping eastward across the Arctic ocean. It will pass just south of the North Pole and make landfall in northeastern Greenland just after 4.00pm local time.

The shadow will then rush along the eastern coast of Greenland at a speed of more than 3400 kilometres per hour. The maximum length of totality will be about 2 minutes and 18 seconds, as the moon’s shadow crosses from Greenland into the Atlantic ocean. It will cross to Iceland, at which point the eclipse will become visible from more heavily inhabited areas – everywhere it will have passed so far is home only to small villages, research stations and those specifically making the journey to see the eclipse. In Reykjavík, though, totality will be visible for just over one minute at 5.48pm local time. This is the first time a total eclipse has been visible in Iceland since 1954, and the last time one will be visible there until 2196.

After skimming the western coast of Iceland, the total eclipse will make another ocean crossing and reach land again in northern Spain just before 8.30pm local time, grazing the northeast corner of Portugal and crossing the Balearic Islands off Spain’s east coast before the sun sets and the eclipse is over.

What happens during a total solar eclipse?

During totality, when the disc of the sun is completely concealed by the moon, temperatures on the ground rapidly drop by several degrees and daytime transforms into twilight. The stars and the outer reaches of the sun become visible. Usually, the sun’s outermost layer, the corona, is completely lost in the glare from its far brighter inner regions, but when those are blocked out, its shimmering sheets of extraordinarily hot plasma become briefly visible to the naked eye. In all other phases of the eclipse, it is crucial to wear eclipse glasses or use a solar filter while looking directly at the sun to prevent eye damage, but during totality it is safe to look at the corona.

That is precisely what many solar scientists will be doing during August’s eclipse. Total eclipses mark a valuable opportunity to observe the corona and try to unravel its many mysteries, including why it is so much hotter than the sun’s surface.

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While the total eclipse will be short and only visible in a few areas, a partial eclipse, with the moon taking a “bite” out of the sun, will last much longer across about a quarter of the entire planet. In many locations across the northern US, all of Canada, much of Europe and northwestern Africa, the partial eclipse will last more than an hour. It won’t be as dramatic as a total eclipse – the corona will not become visible, and the ambient light levels and temperatures won’t drop as dramatically – but will be watchable for many more people. During a partial eclipse, eye protection is needed the whole time. If you don’t have eye protection, there are several ways to watch the eclipse without looking directly at the sun, including using a pinhole camera or even natural shadows to create a projection of the sun’s shape as the moon passes in front of it.

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A carefully coordinated dance between twin satellites has created the first artificial solar eclipse in space, revealing the sun’s scorching corona in extreme detail.

The Proba-3 mission, which launched in December last year, is operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and consists of two satellites flying at a distance of 150 metres from each other.

One of the satellites, called the Occulter, carries a 1.4-metre-wide carbon fibre and plastic disc, which blocks out the sun’s light for the second satellite, the Coronagraph, which is equipped with a camera and scientific instruments. To take the pictures, there can’t be more than a 1-millimetre error in how the two satellites are aligned.

In March, the satellites flew autonomously and lined up for several hours, taking multiple seconds-long exposures of the eclipsed sun. ESA scientists could stitch these together to produce full photos of the sun’s corona, the outermost part of its atmosphere, which can reach temperatures that are millions of degrees hotter than its surface.

“The first time I saw these pictures, it was difficult to believe,” says at ESA. “But quickly, it was also a very, very strong feeling of achievement and pride for everything we have done over the years.”

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The above image shows the visible light of the corona, the same as would be seen by the human eye, but with a green filter.

Proba-3’s camera can also look at frequencies of light that correspond to specific elements in the sun’s corona, such as the darker green image above, which shows light emitted from extremely electron-depleted iron that exists in the hottest regions of the corona.

“We can clearly see the corona, which is already a major achievement,” says Galano.

The above image shows the sun’s corona, coloured artificially to appear violet, in polarised white light. This was captured using a special technique that allows scientists to separate the polarised light of the hot corona from light that is scattered by interplanetary dust.

These images were mainly to test that Proba-3 was working correctly, but when the mission is fully up and running it will be able to take pictures of artificial eclipses every 19.6 hours, each time it orbits Earth, including much longer exposures lasting up to six hours.

This will improve our understanding of the sun’s corona physics, says Galano, as well as help us to better understand the solar wind and coronal mass ejections, which affect space weather.

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The total solar eclipse that passed across North America on 8 April drew millions out to the path of totality – the thin strip of land across which the moon’s silhouette blocked out the entire disc of the sun. Even more gawked at the partial eclipse visible across most of the continent. Here are five of 91av’s favourite images from 2024’s total eclipse.

On the right side of this image, which was taken in Kerrville, Texas, you can see the edge of the moon just beginning to encroach on the sun. Closer to the centre and left side of the sun are a pair of sunspots – dim areas where the surface of the sun is unusually cool.

This picture, also taken in Kerrville, Texas, shows a phenomenon called Baily’s Beads. Just before and after complete totality, the topography of the moon allows small beams of sunlight to peek around its edges, creating bright spots on the edge of the moon’s silhouette.

This image was taken by the GOES-East satellite, which observes Earth from space for weather monitoring and forecasting. The moon’s shadow swept across Mexico and the US during the eclipse, creating a pool of twilight-like darkness at its centre and partial eclipses at its edges.

During totality, pictured here from Indianapolis, Indiana, several prominences were visible on the edges of the sun. These are areas where the sun’s complex magnetic field shapes hot plasma into bright loops and flares that burst off the sun’s surface, and they are easiest to observe when the disc of the sun is blocked by the moon.

For scientists, the main importance of a total solar eclipse is that it provides a unique opportunity to view the sun’s diaphanous outer layer, the corona. When the disc of the sun is not blocked, it far outshines the corona, so an eclipse is the perfect time to study this mysterious sheet of plasma, shown here during totality in Dallas, Texas.

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Solar Eclipse 2024

On 8 April a total solar eclipse will pass over Mexico, the US and Canada. Our special series is covering everything you need to know, from how and when to see it to some of the weirdest eclipse experiences in history.

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To capture this rare event, two of NASA’s WB-57 jet planes, equipped with special instruments, will follow each other at 740 kilometres per hour, about a quarter of the speed of the moon’s shadow, just south-west of the maximum point of the eclipse. At that speed, totality increases from the 4 minutes 27 seconds for those viewing it from the ground to over 6 minutes.

at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is in charge of an onboatd experiment to study the corona using a stabilised platform to capture images of the eclipse using both a visible-light camera and a higher-resolution mid-infrared camera developed by NASA. The latter will capture seven different wavelengths of light and help determine which structures in the corona emit their own light and which merely scatter light from the sun’s surface.

Read more: Solar eclipse 2024

The following is an extract from our monthly Launchpad newsletter, in which resident space expert Leah Crane journeys through the solar system and beyond. You can sign up for Launchpad for free��here.

It was 1919 when the moon did a perfectly natural thing – blocked our view of the sun – and changed our understanding of the universe forever. Astronomer Arthur Eddington was watching from the African island of Príncipe, observing the positions of stars and planets that became visible during the eerie daylight darkness. With most of the sun’s light dimmed, he was able to see how light from distant stars warped as it was deflected by our sun’s gravitational pull, an effect called gravitational lensing.

He confirmed his sightings with those of another expedition in Brazil, and these observations offered some of the first proof for Albert Einstein’s relatively new theory of general relativity. This description of how massive objects warp the fabric of space-time is now considered foundational, but at the time it was a revelation. It changed everything about how we think about gravity and the cosmos.

It also resulted in my of all time, published in The New York Times later that year: “LIGHTS ALL ASKEW IN THE HEAVENS; Men of science more or less agog over results of eclipse observations. EINSTEIN THEORY TRIUMPHS Stars not where they seemed or were calculated to be, but nobody need worry.”

“Nobody need worry” might seem a bit over the top, but watching a total solar eclipse can indeed make you feel inexplicably nervous. I saw my first one in 2017. It was absolutely unforgettable. You might think that an eclipse is just like an overcast day with a cloud drifting in front of the sun – after all, what’s happening is simply the moon passing in front of the sun and casting a shadow on Earth – but it’s astonishingly different.

The first thing you’ll notice during a total eclipse is the shadow of the moon rushing over the ground towards you at speeds in excess of 2400 kilometres per hour. The area of shadow is quite wide – during the April 2024 eclipse it was up to 185 kilometres wide, but that changes slightly based on the exact orientations of the sun and moon. As the shadow grows near, the moon appears to take a bite out of the sun, and there’s a strange quality to the light, as if a fog has fallen.

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Then, suddenly, it goes dark. This is totality. Temperatures drop by up to 10 degrees. The only light comes from the sun’s outermost layer, called its corona, which ripples beyond the silhouette of the moon. It becomes so dark that some stars are visible in the sky. Many animals, including birds and insects, understandably seem to think that it’s nighttime, so the otherworldly twilight goes quiet except for the chirping of nocturnal insects that have awoken. I can’t say how you will feel, but for me it was a mix of awe and a strange, primal terror – the sun disappeared, and while my mind knew why, my body panicked at its loss.

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This seems to be a fairly common reaction, and not only in humans. Researchers studying animals during past total eclipses have found that while some simply went about their evening routines early, many of them showed signs of anxiety, running aimlessly or huddling together during totality.

Then, after just a few minutes, totality recedes just as quickly as it arrived. The shadow rushes away, the sun comes back out, and the birds and insects resume their chirping. The astronomers look up from their solar telescopes, groggy but excited at the treasure trove of data they’ve gathered.

Over the thousands of years humans have been observing solar eclipses, we’ve learned some pretty fascinating things. With the disc of the sun covered by the moon, its faint corona becomes visible, making an eclipse the perfect time to study the outer reaches of the sun. For example, scientists first discovered helium during a total solar eclipse. Eclipses are also the best times to observe the plumes of radiation and matter emanating from the surface of the sun through the corona. The corona itself is quite strange, and there’s plenty left to unravel about how it works – despite being far from the sun’s central fusion, the corona is millions of degrees hotter than the sun’s surface, and we still don’t know why.

Even if you’re not studying the sun’s mysterious layers, seeing a total solar eclipse is completely worth it. Those newspaper editors had it right more than a century ago: it’ll leave you more or less agog.