WEB DESK: It’s been nearly two years since the “Great American Eclipse.” Millions crammed into a 70-mile wide path of totality stretching from coast to coast, where the moon blotted out the sun to usher in spontaneous nightfall. It was a planetary cavalcade, unlike anything most had seen.
Next Tuesday, Earth will again find itself the backdrop of the moon’s shadow, but this time, basking in the lunar umbra won’t be so easy. Though the path of totality spans 6,000 miles, most of it is over the remote South Pacific. Only a narrow zone in Chile and Argentina will witness totality before sunset – weather permitting.
Making matters more complicated is the low elevation of the sun. Since totality strikes at 4:38 p.m. – just one hour, 18 minutes before sunset – the solar disk will hover a mere 13 degrees above the northwest horizon as the moon intercepts its light. That means even distant clouds could spoil the show. During the 2017 eclipse, the sun was 60 degrees high, so the only clouds that mattered were the those directly above. The eclipse in Chile will be much trickier.
The only total solar eclipse of the year spanning the southern tip of South America, including the nations of Chile and Argentina. As an extra-special part of the spectacle, however, the path of totality for the eclipse passes right over the La Silla observatory complex in the Atacama Desert.
