This week’s total solar eclipse is a bad-news, good-news, even-better-news situation for skywatchers in the United States.
Solar eclipses are must-see astronomical events that occur when the moon is positioned just right to block the sun’s disk, as seen from Earth. The eclipse that unfolds on Tuesday is the only time during 2016 that anyone can see the sun totally blotted out.
The bad news is that the total eclipse is visible only in the Asia-Pacific region. The moon’s shadow rolls eastward across the Indian and Pacific oceans, beginning at sunrise just west of Indonesia and ending at sunset just east of Hawaii. If you’re in the United States, you’ll totally miss seeing totality in person.
The good news is that in this age of the Internet, you can still get a peek online.
