(NEXSTAR) – Can’t catch the total solar eclipse on Monday? Don’t be too bummed. They tend to occur about as often as “Fast & Furious” movies.
Despite the fervor surrounding the 2024 total solar eclipse, these types of celestial events take place roughly every 18 months, according to astronomers. The next one is actually a bit of a longer wait, occurring on Aug. 12, 2026, but the following total solar eclipse is less than a year afterward, on Aug. 2, 2027.
So why all the hubbub over the April 8 eclipse? It’s because it’s visible in the U.S., and across a relatively large, populated swath of the country.
Future eclipses may be just as brilliant and breathtaking, of course. You’ll just have to travel a bit farther to see them.
The path of totality for the next solar eclipse, on Aug. 12, 2026, will run through portions of Greenland, Iceland, Portugal, Russia and Spain — but mainly over the Arctic Ocean, as seen in maps provided by the National Solar Observatory. The one after that, on Aug. 2, 2027, will pass across portions of the Middle East and North Africa.
Portions of Australia will catch the following total solar eclipse in 2028, while southern Africa and (again) Australia will see the one after that in 2030. And NASA has mapped out 49 more total solar eclipses through 2100, for anyone planning to become an eclipse tourist in retirement.
“Since they happen somewhere on Earth every 18 months or so, as an eclipse chaser you can experience quite a few eclipses in a lifetime … if you’re willing to do some serious travel, that is,” Padi Boyd, the chief of NASA’s Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory, said in a March edition of NASA’s “Curious Universe” podcast.
Other than its occurrence in North America, the upcoming eclipse on April 8 is indeed somewhat exciting for at least a couple of major reasons. For starters, the 2024 eclipse has a wider path of totality than the last total solar eclipse visible from the U.S. in 2017 (roughly 108–122 miles vs. 62–71 miles, respectively) and passes over a more populated swath, with approximately 31.6 million people being in the path of totality vs. the 12 million who were along the path in 2017, according to NASA.
The duration of the upcoming total solar eclipse is also almost two minutes longer than it was in 2017, giving viewers a better chance to see the sun’s corona — which itself may be more active than it was in 2017 thanks to the current period of heightened solar activity.
And let’s not forget that any given spot on Earth will only experience a total solar eclipse about once every 375 years (on average), making it all the more rare that anyone — and especially those who can’t travel to see one — will catch such a sight within their lifetime. Heck, the fact that Earth is even treated to the occasional solar eclipse is monumentally unlikely in the grand scheme of the universe: The sun just happens to be about 400 times larger than the moon, and the moon just happens to be about 400 times closer than the sun, allowing them to line up perfectly with the Earth for a wholly unique view of the corona.
Even if you’re fortunate enough to be able to see multiple total solar eclipses in your lifetime, the experience is one you’ll likely want to relive again and again, as unsettling as it may sometimes be.
“My reaction physiologically is that the hair on the back of my neck is standing up, my heart is racing, and you just get a visceral feeling in your gut that something is wrong,” former NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak said on “Curious Universe,” describing his reaction to seeing a total solar eclipse. “This just does not seem natural. It seems so far out of any kind of everyday experience.”
Still bummed you might miss the 2024 total solar eclipse? It’s OK. There’s always the next one, which is only a few years away if you’re willing to travel. And if not, you can try recreating the otherworldly experience by watching Vin Diesel drive a car up the side of Machu Picchu, or whatever they’re planning for the next “Fast & Furious” movie.
That might be somewhat comparable, right?