I have spent my whole life watching the sky. As an astronomer, I’ve been to observatories all over the world and used every kind of telescope to look at distant star clusters and massive galaxies. Every clear night is an opportunity to experience something amazing. I have seen comets stretch across the sky, viewed sunlight glinting off the dust that floats between the planets, and witnessed a Milky Way so bright that the glow of its billion stars cast a shadow at my feet. But in all my life I have never seen anything as awe inspiring, as awesome—in the original definition of the word—as a total eclipse of the Sun. It is the only astronomical wonder that requires no telescope or complicated equipment to see. In fact, it looks even more spectacular to the eye than through the lens of any camera.
For an event that has at some point touched almost every place on Earth, remarkably few people have ever seen a total solar eclipse. The fact that anyone is able to see one is due to the great coincidence that our Moon is exactly the right size and distance from the Earth to cover the Sun completely. More often than not, the alignment between the worlds is imperfect, resulting in a partial eclipse where the Moon only blocks a portion of the Sun. At those moments, the Sun is still blindingly bright (literally) and so we are warned to use those little paper eclipse glasses that reward us with the strange sight of a Sun that is not fully there. It’s likely that you have probably seen a partial eclipse without making any special effort.
But on those much rarer occasions, when the alignment of Sun and Moon is perfect, and you stand fully within the shadow of the Moon, you’ll see a total eclipse. The shadow on the landscape is small—maybe no more than a few dozen miles wide—yet the motion of the Moon draws this darkness eastward for thousands of miles across our planet. This is the path of totality. For anyone on the ground, the experience can be either awe-inspiring or merely interesting, depending entirely on whether you are inside or outside that ribbon of darkness. Outside totality’s path and the Sun is still blinding—use of those glasses is imperative for your safety. But stand inside the path and the temperature drops, birds grow quiet, shadows sharpen, and colors become muted and fade. Then, all at once, the Sun turns black and the stars come out. Overhead a ghostly aura streams outward around the Sun’s dark disk.
Make no mistake, the difference between whether you’re inside the path of totality or outside it is literally the difference between day and night. No other experience comes close to the multisensory strangeness of this most unnatural of natural events. From someone who has been there, trust me, the minute it’s over, you’ll wonder where and when to go to see another.
Totality changes everything.