Your opportunity to see Monday’s eclipse may have just gotten smaller.
A new calculation by John Irwin, a master in eclipse computations, suggests that the solar eclipse’s path of totality — where the moon will completely blot out the sun — is actually 600 yards narrower than the official NASA projections.
This means that if you were planning to watch the eclipse from a place on the edge of the path of totality, you might have an even shorter window.
Some spots will miss out entirely.
Based on this new data, locales that were expected to see the total eclipse for a few seconds — like Rome, New York; Effingham, Illinois; and Montreal’s Cité Jardin park, are now just out of the zone.
The change in the 115-mile-wide, 9,200-mile-long path of totality was first reported by Forbes.
A NASA scientists confirmed that the long-standing official map might not be exactly accurate and advised people right on the edge to travel a mile or so into the zone to guarantee they see the moon completely obscure the sun.
The cause of the discrepancy: disagreements about how big the sun is.
“Calculations that use a slightly larger radius for the size of the sun yield an eclipse path that is slightly narrower,” Dr. Michael Kirk, a research scientist in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told Thrillist Wednesday.
“This difference would only affect cities on the very edge of the path of totality, where blanket predictions are difficult, regardless.
“A few city blocks one way or the other could mean 20, ten, or zero seconds of totality.”
The zone of totality could also be slightly impacted by “uncertainty in the Earth’s rotation,” Kirk said.
“Traveling towards the center of the path of totality—even a mile or two—will quickly increase the length of totality that people can see.”
Everything to know about the 2024 solar eclipse
- The solar eclipse will take place Monday, April 8, blocking the sun for over 180 million people in its path.
- The eclipse will expand from Mexico’s Pacific Coast across North America, hitting 15 US states and pulling itself all the way to the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
- New Yorkers will experience the solar eclipse just after 2 p.m. Monday.
- A huge explosion on the sun, known as a coronal mass ejection, is anticipated, according to experts. This happens when massive particles from the sun are hurled out into space, explains Ryan French of the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado.
- To avoid serious injury to the eyes, it is necessary to view the event through proper eyewear like eclipse glasses, or a handheld solar viewer, during the partial eclipse phase before and after totality.
- The next total solar eclipse will take place on Aug. 12, 2026, and totality will be visible to those in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and a small slice of Portugal.
Any small nuance in the zone would not affect the vast majority of the estimated 34 million people that are expected to witness the total solar eclipse on Monday.
Many major US cities like Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland and Buffalo are still squarely in the center of the path, and will see nearly four minutes of complete darkness.
The longest period of darkness in the zone will be in Torreón, Mexico, where the sun will be blacked out for four minutes and 28 seconds.
By the time the eclipse is visible in Lake Placid, New York, the length of totality will have decreased to three minutes and 21 seconds.
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