Minnesota – and, indeed, the rest of America – will be treated to a rare solar eclipse a year from today.
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On Aug. 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will be visible from coast to coast, according to NASA.
A solar eclipse is when the shadow of the moon shifts over the Earth, blocking out the sun. Plenty of stargazers are already planning for the event. Barring pesky clouds, more Americans should be able to see this one than ever before as it passes through 12 states. It will be the first total eclipse visible only in the US since the country was founded in 1776.
The eclipse will start on the West Coast in OR and trace a 67-mile wide path east across the country, finally exiting the East Coast in SC. And while this shadow will be moving very quickly, you’ll still have about two to three minutes (at best) to catch the eclipse before it moves on. Space.com points out that roughly 12 million Americans live in the path of the eclipse, but 220 million live within a day’s drive (500 miles) of the totality zone. The closest areas that will are parts of SC, far western North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Nashville, for example, has a festival prepared for what it’s calling the Music City Solar Eclipse, with a website that features a countdown clock (52 days away!). The last total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States, 37 years ago, only clipped the northwestern United States, mostly rural areas of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota.
Calls made to hotels in Idaho Falls, the largest city in the path of the eclipse, this past June reveal they had all been booked out 14 months in advance, the newspaper notes.
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And in Columbia, S.C., the city is expecting and preparing for visitors to come to the region due to its unique location in the path and “to celebrate and witness the spectacle of totality”, said Merritt McNeely of the South Carolina State Museum. If you miss this one, the next won’t happen until 2024, and it won’t be anywhere near this area.
