A total eclipse of the sun will occur on March 20 and will be visible from the North Atlantic Ocean, according to a press release from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). A partial eclipse will be visible from the U.K. and Ireland with 97 percent of the sun blocked - the deepest eclipse since 1999 and the only one until 2026.
"Total solar eclipses take place when the Earth, Moon and Sun are almost precisely aligned and the shadow of the Moon touches the surface of the Earth," the press release explained. "At mid-eclipse, observers within the lunar shadow briefly see totality, where the silhouette of the Moon completely covers the Sun, revealing the beautiful outer solar atmosphere or corona. Totality is visible this time along a track a few hundred kilometres wide, which only intersects two landmasses, the Faroe Islands midway between Scotland and Iceland, and the arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Observers in those locations will see between two and two-and-a-half minutes of totality.
"Away from the path of the total eclipse the Sun is only partly obscured by the Moon. This time the partial eclipse is visible across a large part of the northern hemisphere, including the whole of Europe, Greenland, Newfoundland, northern Africa and western Asia."
The partial eclipse will begin in London at 08:25 GMT. Maximum eclipse will be reached at 09:31 GMT when 85 percent of the sun will be blocked out. The eclipse ends at 10:41 GMT.
Those in the north (the British Isles) will get a better view. From Edinburgh, the moon will block 93 percent of the sun and from Lerwick in the Shetland Isles, 97 percent of the sun will be blocked.
RAS warns: "Although eclipses of the Sun are spectacular events, they should NOT be viewed with the unaided eye except during the brief period of totality, which this time will not be visible anywhere in the UK. Despite a large part of the solar disk being covered, looking at the partially eclipsed Sun without appropriate protection can cause serious and permanent damage to the eyes.
"The Royal Astronomical Society is backing the stance of Public Health England and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, who are warning about the risk of eye damage from looking at the Sun. With the Society for Popular Astronomy (SPA), the RAS has produced a booklet on how to safely view the eclipse that suggests a number of ways to project the solar image rather than looking at the Sun directly."
