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Space

Totality is a thin ribbon

Totality happens only inside a band a few hundred kilometres wide. Here are all 67 of this century's, at NASA's true width. Drag to spin; tap or hover a band.

Length of totality
1 min6 min 40 s
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Data & source

Data: NASA GSFC Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses, Espenak & Meeus (NASA/TP-2009-214174) — U.S. Government work, public domain · snapshot taken — · Scope: the 68 total solar eclipses of 2001–2100, of which 67 have a tabulated central path (the 2043 event is non-central — the umbra only grazes the polar limb — so NASA publishes no path for it). The century's 72 annular, 7 hybrid and 77 partial eclipses are not drawn. · Bands are built from NASA's northern-limit, southern-limit and central-line coordinates at two-minute intervals; the shape between tabulated points is straight-line interpolation, and a band pinches to its central line where NASA lists no limit (the umbra's edge misses the Earth there). Widths are true, not exaggerated — they flare near sunrise and sunset because the shadow strikes the ground at a shallow angle. · Country lists are the countries the central line crosses at 110 m-resolution boundaries, so a coastline the band only clips can be missing. · Predictions, not observations: ΔT for dates far ahead carries uncertainty of minutes, which shifts a path east or west.