Millions of people gathered across Iceland and northern Spain to witness Western Europe’s first total solar eclipse in 27 years.
Spectators across Spain watched in wonder on Wednesday evening, some pulling off their protective glasses and rising to their feet in unison, as a rare total solar eclipse swept across the north of the country, plunging it into sudden darkness. Spain deployed a large police contingent and set up dedicated viewing spots across rural areas offering the best vantage points for the spectacle.
Throughout human history, eclipses have stirred amazement, fear, and reverence, appearing to momentarily halt the ordinary course of nature. The shadow, or “umbra,” cast by the alignment of the sun and moon produces an eerie twilight in which temperatures drop, shadows fall at strange angles, and some animals settle into sleep. Yet the phenomenon passes quickly, lasting only minutes, with the lunar shadow racing across the Earth’s surface at roughly 3,430 kilometres per hour, according to the Paris Observatory.
Scenes from across the path of totality captured the moment in different forms: the moon partially covering the sun over mountains near the northern Spanish town of Reinosa; the striking “diamond ring” effect as the moon crossed the sun, seen from El Arenal beach in Mallorca; and crowds watching the partial eclipse through protective glasses from the Dune of Pilat near Arcachon, France. In Reinosa, the moon fully covered the sun, while onlookers in the port city of Tarragona reacted to the moment of totality along the coast.
Elsewhere in Europe, an airplane crossed the partially eclipsed sun as seen from Prague, while a family in Prachatice, Czech Republic, watched through masks and special glasses. Satellite time-lapse imagery captured the shadow falling across the Northern Hemisphere during the event, while in Berlanga de Duero, roughly 240km northeast of Madrid, the sun’s corona glowed as the moon fully blocked the sun during totality.
In London, crowds gathered on Primrose Hill to observe a near-total eclipse, with more than 90% of the sun obscured by the moon across Britain, one woman using a piece of paper to capture the eclipse’s refracted image through binoculars. Meanwhile, a passenger aboard a special Iberia flight photographed the eclipse from the skies above Spain.
