Wednesday 12 August 2026 · 3D experience
The shadow’s journey
For 92 minutes, the Moon’s shadow will race across the Earth: it touches down in the Arctic, sweeps over Iceland and the open Atlantic, and dies in the Mediterranean after crossing Spain. This is its real track, computed to the second. Ride along.
17:00:07 UTC · Arctic Ocean
The shadow makes landfall
At 17:00 UTC the tip of the Moon’s shadow cone — a needle 380,000 km long — touches the Earth’s surface on the Arctic coast of Siberia, at 76° north. A journey begins that will end 92 minutes later in the Spanish Mediterranean.
92 min on the surface of the Earth: from Arctic Siberia to the Balearic Sea
17:44–17:52 UTC · Iceland
A minute of night in broad daylight
After crossing the Arctic, the dark patch — an oval about 130 km across, stretched long by the low sun — sweeps Iceland from north to south: first the Westfjords (1 min 35 s of totality in Ísafjörður), then the Snæfellsnes peninsula (2 min 07 s in Ólafsvík), and finally Reykjavik, where at 17:48 local time the day switches off for 1 min 02 s.
1 min 02 s of sudden night in Reykjavik at 17:48 local time
17:52–18:26 UTC · North Atlantic
Half an hour flat out over open water
Between Iceland and Galicia there is no land at all: 2,300 km of open ocean that the umbra covers in 34 minutes, accelerating from about 3,400 km/h to more than 6,000. The counter above shows its real ground speed at every instant, derived from the trajectory itself.
3,400 → 6,900 km/h the shadow accelerates towards Spain — three times faster than a jet fighter
18:26–18:34 UTC · Spain
Seven minutes to cross Spain
The shadow enters through Galicia at 18:26 UTC (20:26 local) and does not let go of Spain until almost 18:34, when its edge slips off Formentera. On its way, sudden night sweeps A Coruña, Oviedo (with 1 min 51 s, the luckiest big city), León, Burgos, Zaragoza, València and Palma. Watch them light up as it passes.
1 min 51 s of totality in Oviedo — the longest among the big cities in the path
18:30 UTC · Montesinho, Portugal
Portugal’s 29 seconds
Portugal only tastes totality in one corner of the Montesinho natural park: the villages of Rio de Onor and Guadramil, right on the Spanish border, get 29 s of night at 19:30 local time. The southern edge of the shadow barely grazes them.
29 s in Rio de Onor and Guadramil: Portugal’s entire total eclipse
18:32:12 UTC · Balearic Sea
Where will you be standing?
At 18:32 UTC, next to Menorca, the shadow lifts off the Earth and the 2026 total eclipse is over forever — Spain is the last land it touches. Check what you will see, computed town by town, and start planning where to stand.
How it is made
A real trajectory, not an artist’s sketch
Everything you just flew through comes from our own computation with the JPL DE440s ephemerides (skyfield): the position of the centre of the umbra every 10 seconds, from first contact in Siberia (17:00:07 UTC) to lift-off next to Menorca (18:32:12 UTC), verified against the local circumstances we publish for Reykjavik, A Coruña, Rio de Onor and Palma. The Earth is NASA’s Blue Marble Next Generation image for August — the month of the eclipse — and the night lights are NASA/NOAA’s Earth’s City Lights; both are in the public domain (visibleearth.nasa.gov).