Space.com

Not every canceled NASA program earns a halo after its demise, but one scrapped project is finding new life by contributing its parts to help the space agency achieve its moon base goals faster.

Northrop Grumman is repurposing hardware and technology from the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) space station module for use on a new series of Lunar Infrastructure Demo (LID) missions. HALO was originally designed as the habitation module for NASA's since-cancelled moon-orbiting Gateway space station but found itself on the chopping block when the agency restructured the Artemis program architecture earlier this year.

Rather than scrap the unfinished module outright, Northrop Grumman will adapt HALO's electrical and mechanical components to support the development of technologies for a moon base that can survive the cold, weeks-long night at the lunar south pole while sustaining the long-term habitation of astronauts inside.

Part of NASA's reasoning for canceling Gateway was the need for expedience. As the agency's vision for Artemis and the return of astronauts to the lunar surface has evolved, China's plans to land the first taikonauts on the moon have steadily taken shape. Those ambitions, and the continued progression of China's lunar program, have kicked off a new space race in which the U.S. and NASA are intent on maintaining their first-place position.

In March, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a shakeup to the Artemis program designed to enable a more step-by-step approach toward developing the technologies needed for a next-generation crewed lunar landing, and to achieve that landing on the shortest timeline possible.

That timeline currently puts the first Artemis lunar landing with astronauts on the Artemis IV mission, scheduled for late 2028. Before then, however, NASA is planning nearly two dozen uncrewed missions to the moon to lay the groundwork for the infrastructure needed to precede astronauts' return. And, rather than let HALO rust in a warehouse, Northrop is doubling down on its commitment to the cause.

"To help NASA move faster … HALO’s power, data and mechanical interfaces will enable NASA to move with speed and begin gathering real lunar surface performance data sooner," the company said in a press release on Aug. 4.

Northrop Grumman’s Lunar Infrastructure Demos (LID-1, LID-2 and LID-3) will reuse HALO derived technologies to rapidly mature lunar surface power, thermal, autonomy, communications and hosted payload services that can survive the lunar night and scale into persistent infrastructure near the moon’s south pole.  (Image credit: Northrop Grumman)

Northrop announced 3 LID missions to "reuse HALO-derived technologies to rapidly mature lunar surface power, thermal, autonomy, communications and hosted payload services," which will help NASA gather data to better protect robotics and crews during long-duration stints near the moon's south pole, where the agency plans to establish its Artemis moon base. Neither the company nor NASA gave a target timeline for these missions.

NASA is targeting the south pole specifically because of the abundance of water ice that scientists have detected in that region on the moon. When harnessed appropriately, such ice concentrations can be used for a variety of applications to enable sustainable habitation on the lunar surface — the ultimate goal of the Artemis program — including potable water, radiation shielding and rocket fuel.

NASA believes that overcoming the technological hurdle of "in-situ resource utilization" (ISRU), or the ability to rely on materials locally available to you in order to sustain your survival, is the gold standard of spaceflight that will open the door to humanity's long-term exploration of the cosmos. Manufacturing propellants off Earth, for example, would mean a substantial increase in the distance any particular mission to space can fly, because nearly 95% of a rocket's mass at launch is fuel. So, the ability to refuel in space, circumventing the burden of launching to orbit fully fueled, would give satellites and crewed spacecraft the ability to fly much farther into the solar system than current launch systems allow.

As much as Artemis is, in itself, a program to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, NASA also sees it as the proving ground for technologies that could one day sustain astronaut missions to Mars. There is worry, however, over the national security and economic consequences that could accompany China beating the U.S. to the moon, so speed is top of mind for those tasked with the country's lunar return.

"As America embarks on the next chapter in human space exploration, our Lunar Infrastructure Demos will help turn the moon into a place where astronauts can stay, work and make discoveries that benefit humanity,” said David Schiller, Northrop Grumman's vice president of civil space and sciences, in a statement. “Our ready‑to‑fly, reliable HALO technologies allow NASA to move faster, putting in place robust infrastructure that can endure the lunar night and establish a strong blueprint for a future moon base.”

Eighteen years later, it still gives me a jump scare, even though I know it's coming.

Agent Mulder, hot on the trail of a group of murderers who are harvesting their victims' organs, breaks into a makeshift laboratory in an attempt to save an abducted woman. He finds a gruesome scene of bodies on ice and surgeons, scalpels in hand, preparing to transplant the villain's head onto the abducted woman's body. Mulder turns and  — there it is! The villain's severed head on ice! And it opens its eyes.

It sounds less like a scene out of a science fiction mystery series and one more suited to a horror film. And that's precisely why Chris Carter, creator of "The X-Files", is revisiting the 2008 film "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" in a new R-rated director's cut coming to Hulu on Aug. 14.

Space.com got the chance to speak with Carter about the upcoming director's cut and the inspiration behind revisiting the standalone "X-Files" film nearly two decades after its release.

"I wanted to make the scary movie that I always had intended to make, intended to direct, and this is more in line with that," Carter told Space.com. "It gave me a chance to remember the making of the movie and what I had intended it to be, and how different it was from that original vision."

The director's cut features a new addition to the film's title  — "The X-Files: I Want to Believe  — Vrach Frankenshteyn". Carter said the name at the end (Russian for "Doctor Frankenstein") is a way of alluding to the tone and themes that he intended to focus on in the original film.

"It's a Frankenstein story, and the original inspiration for it was a doctor in Cleveland, Ohio, who transplanted the head of a monkey onto another monkey, and I thought that is perfect X-Files territory," Carter said.

Chris Carter on the set of the 2008 film "The X-Files: I Want to Believe." (Image credit: 20th Century Studios/Walt Disney Co.)

Carter's original version of the film was re-edited two times in order for it to be released with the PG-13 rating that 20th Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios) insisted upon.

"When we first made the movie, we had a vision, and we tried to bring it to life. And when we took it to the executives at 20th Century Fox, they said, 'This isn't a PG-13 movie. This is torture porn.'

"And so we cut it back to what we thought was a PG-13 movie to placate the executives, and then we gave it to the motion picture censors, and they said this isn't a PG-13 movie."

With many of the horror elements cut or toned down, the 2008 theatrical release ended up focusing quite a bit of time on the relationship between Mulder and Scully  — a fan-favorite part of the series for sure, but not one that Carter intended to be so central to "I Want to Believe."

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in "The X-Files: I Want to Believe  — Vrach Frankenshteyn." (Image credit: 20th Century Studios/Walt Disney Co.)

The film's plot centers on a group of women who go missing. When a disgraced priest begins having supernatural visions of the missing women, agents Mulder and Scully come out of retirement to take on another case full of mysteries and unexplained events. Their investigation finds them uncovering an illegal organ harvesting operation, bizarre life extension experiments conducted by a murderous mad scientist, and unexplained supernatural occurrences and synchronicities: classic "X-Files" fare.

But despite being rooted in the long-running themes of the nine-season series, the film is accessible for first-time "X-Files" viewers or casual fans (or its underrated spin-off).

Rather than diving into the dense, overlapping conspiracies that form the series' core mythology of alien invasion and the government cover-up that keeps it a secret, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe  — Vrach Frankenshteyn" is what is referred to as a "monster of the week" story. It's a standalone plot that doesn't require a deep knowledge of the series or its mythology to enjoy.

David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and Chris Carter on the set of the 2008 film "The X-Files: I Want to Believe." (Image credit: 20th Century Studios/Walt Disney Co.)

Interestingly, the film breaks with the tradition of director's cuts featuring loads of deleted scenes and footage that never made it past the cutting room floor. It actually features a shorter runtime than the theatrical release.

"And everyone asks me that; why is it with most directors' cuts they're always longer because they throw everything in that got cut out. In this case, I felt it could be streamlined a little," Carter said. "I lightened up a little bit on the Mulder and Scully relationship beats and focused more on the horror movie that we really wanted to make."

In keeping with "X-Files" tradition, the director's cut also leaves many of its core mysteries and supernatural elements unresolved. That central theme, the ongoing search for truth and meaning in a sometimes mysterious and unexplainable universe, reflects Carter's own views.

"I really think of science as a search for God, and there are so many big questions that are unanswered, and we are trying to find the answers to those things," Carter said. "And will those answered questions bring us closer to an idea or a how it how it all began? What came before the Big Bang?"

Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully in "The X-Files: I Want to Believe  — Vrach Frankenshteyn." (Image credit: 20th Century Studios/Walt Disney Co.)

Perhaps in a case of life imitating art, another key theme of "The X-Files" has made its way into the halls of the White House and Capitol Hill in recent years.

The U.S. government has held several congressional hearings discussing disclosure of alleged UFO secrets. The Trump administration has even released dozens of files, images and videos of alleged UFOs, or UAPs, as they're now known. Conspiracy theories of all kinds, particularly when it comes to aliens, have become mainstream.

Does that mean the truth is really out there? It certainly shows that we, as a nation, want to believe. But whatever the case may be, it is that same wonder, the same drive to question authority and probe the unknown, that drives Chris Carter to explore "The X-Files" after more than three decades.

"In every conspiracy is the kernel of truth, and that's interesting to me as a storyteller," Carter said.

"The X-Files: I Want to Believe  — Vrach Frankenshteyn" debuts on Hulu on Aug. 14, 2026.

The night sky holds endless wonders, but few experiences match the thrill of photographing planets in vivid detail. With even a modest telescope and camera setup, you can capture cloud bands on Jupiter, the majestic rings of Saturn or the polar caps of Mars — images once the preserve of professional observatories. This technique, known as lucky imaging, records short video clips at high frame rates to freeze fleeting moments of steady air, then stacks the sharpest frames into one crisp photo.

No advanced skills are required to start. Whether you own a modest backyard telescope or are shopping for your first planetary camera, this guide provides everything needed to succeed. You will learn a complete workflow that takes you from set-up to finished image, explore why certain planets are easier than others and find answers to practical questions that beginners often ask.

Clear skies, patience and practice are your only limits. Soon you will be creating gallery-worthy shots right from home.

Step-by-step tutorial: Imaging planets with a telescope and camera

Planetary imaging relies on video capture rather than single long exposures. Follow these 12 steps for reliable results with most setups. Planning observations in advance is essential!

1. Check weather conditions

(Image: © Damian Peach)

Check conditions and plan your target. Use a planetarium app such as Stellarium or a site like TimeAndDate.com to confirm the planet is visible and high in the sky. Review weather forecasts and seeing predictions on ClearDarkSky.com or Windy.com. Good seeing — stable, calm air — makes all the difference when it comes to this kind of imaging!

2. Set up before night time

(Image: © Damian Peach)

Set your telescope up outdoors early. Allow it to cool for at least a couple of hours so that internal air currents do not blur the view. Level the tripod and power on your motorized mount.

3. Use a motorized tracking mount

(Image: © Damian Peach)

A motorized tracking mount is essential. For GoTo systems such as Celestron NexStar models, perform a quick two-star alignment and sync directly on the planet. Equatorial mounts need polar alignment for smooth tracking. Alt-az tracking Dobsonians need just a quick one- or two-star alignment to get you underway.

Centering the planets make take a little while, less with a GoTo mount, but it's absolutely essential.

4. Locate and center the planet either manually or via GoTo. Use the finder scope or red-dot finder, then switch to a low-power eyepiece to bring the target into view and center it as best you can.

5. Increase your magnification

(Image: © Damian Peach)

Add magnification. Insert a 2x or 3x Barlow lens or Powermate into the focuser. This increases focal length to fill more of the camera sensor with the small planetary disk. Once that’s done, check your telescope collimation on a star – this is essential for this kind of astrophotography. Adjust the collimation screws to give a nice concentric, out-of-focus star pattern that looks like a bullseye.

6. Synchronize your laptop

Connect to your laptop. Plug the camera into a USB port and launch capture software such as SharpCap or FireCapture – both programs are freely available for use.

7. Connect the camera

Remove the eyepiece and connect your planetary camera — such as a ZWO ASI224MC,ASI585MC or similar — using the appropriate 1.25-inch nose piece or T-ring. Secure everything firmly.

8. Keep things central

Center the planet. Spend time focusing carefully on the planet itself. Slowly adjust the focuser while watching surface details sharpen. Many imagers slightly defocus, then refocus through the sweet spot for precision. Do this several times to get the best focus you can. Atmospheric seeing conditions will seriously impact how easy this step is.

9. Setting correct parameters is crucial

(Image: © Damian Peach)

Set camera parameters. Choose a high frame rate — 50 to 100 frames per second or more. Keep exposure short and gain moderate, so the planet fills at least 80% of the histogram without clipping highlights. Enable color debayering or monochrome mode as appropriate.

10. Time to shoot video

(Image: © Damian Peach)

Record videos. Capture plenty of short videos of 60 to 120 seconds each, aiming for several thousand frames per run. Save in SER format for ease of use in other software.

11. Transfer and preview

(Image: © Damian Peach)

When finished, transfer and review files. Preview clips to discard any with obvious drift or poor seeing.

12. Process the data

(Image: © Damian Peach)

Process the data. Open your best videos in AutoStakkert! to align and stack the sharpest 20 to 50% of frames from each video. Export the result to LuckyStackWorker or RegiStax. Apply wavelet sharpening in layers, adjust the histogram for contrast and balance the color channels. Export your final image.

Repeat the process on multiple nights. Each session builds skill and yields better data — it can take many attempts before catching some great quality data. Patience is essential.

The best planets to target with your telescope and camera

The wider the aperture, the more impressive your shots are likely to be. (Image credit: B. Brown)

Jupiter ranks as the top choice for beginners – and perhaps even veterans! Its large disk shows colorful cloud bands, the Great Red Spot and orbiting moons even in modest telescopes. The planet’s brightness and size tolerate average seeing well and reward those even with modest equipment.

This image of Saturn was captured through a Celestron C14 telescope (Image credit: Damian Peach)

Saturn follows closely. Its iconic rings and subtle atmospheric banding create dramatic images. While significantly dimmer than Jupiter, modest telescopes easily reveal its brilliant rings, and the belts and zones within the planet’s atmosphere.

Again viewed through the Celestron C14, a close-up view of Mars. (Image credit: Damian Peach)

Mars delivers excitement during its oppositions every couple of years. At closest approach the planet swells in apparent size, revealing dark surface markings, polar ice caps and occasional dust storms. Again, even small telescopes reveal fascinating detail when the planet is close to opposition.

Venus is harder to see through a telescope, often resembling our own moon from a distance. (Image credit: Damian Peach)

Venus offers an easy entry point. Extremely bright and straightforward to locate, it displays clear phases like a miniature moon. Cloud features require ultraviolet filters, but the phases alone impress viewers — even binoculars show these phases clearly.

These four planets share key advantages: They appear large and bright enough for small apertures to record good detail on them. Jupiter, Saturn and Mars are the top three – all are fascinating objects to study for observers of all experience levels.

Handling the more challenging solar system targets, however, requires more advanced equipment and experience levels.

Mercury, Uranus and Neptune present greater challenges. Mercury stays glued to the sun’s glare, visible only briefly at dawn or dusk and best at maximum elongation. Its tiny disk demands exceptional seeing and precise daytime locating skills as well as a decent size telescope.

Uranus and Neptune appear as tiny blue-green disks. Their small apparent sizes require at least an 8-inch aperture telescope, longer focal lengths and higher magnification. Larger apertures gather more light, while monochrome cameras with filters help tease out subtle banding.

Upgrading to a 10-inch or larger telescope, a high-sensitivity monochrome camera and a filter wheel unlocks these distant worlds. Start with the easier quartet before investing further.

Frequently asked questions

Timing can be everything if you're looking to take some superb pictures of planets. (Image credit: Getty)

When is the best time to image the planets?

Aim for nights when the target planet rides high in the sky — ideally near the meridian — to minimize atmospheric turbulence. Planets such as Jupiter, Saturn and Mars look largest and brightest around opposition, when Earth lies directly between them and the sun. But good seeing matters more than the calendar: stable air with low turbulence yields sharper frames regardless of season. Check forecasts and look for periods of high pressure with stable weather and calm winds. Planetary imaging works year-round on clear nights, but spring and fall often deliver steadier conditions. Light pollution is also irrelevant to this form of imaging, so it’s something you can easily undertake from urban locations.

What is the most basic setup you need to do this?

A 4- to 6-inch aperture telescope on a motorized mount — such as a Celestron NexStar 6SE or anything similar — provides an ideal starter platform. Pair it with an entry-level planetary camera like the ZWO ASI224MC, plus a 2x Barlow lens and a laptop running free software. Total beginner budget often stays under $800 if you already own the telescope. This kit can capture excellent Jupiter and Saturn images without breaking the bank. Skip expensive cooled cameras or large apertures until you gain experience.

How long does it take to get a good image?

The real key to achieving good image quality is everything you do before pressing the record button: Making sure the telescope is properly cooled down, ensuring it is properly collimated, taking time to focus carefully. All these factors play a huge role. Beyond this, it is largely down to the steadiness of the atmosphere when capturing. The steadier the seeing, the better the result will be!

Summary

We hope that, with a little practice, this gives you the know-how you need to take stunning images of the planets. If you've yet to purchase the necessary equipment, take a look at our guides to the best telescopes and best dedicated astrophotography cameras.

Virgin Galactic's next customers will have to wait a bit longer to get off the ground.

The suborbital space tourism company hasn't been to the final frontier since June 2024. It had been targeting late 2026 for the resumption of commercial service, but that's not going to happen, we learned on Wednesday (Aug. 12).

"We've moved our first commercial spaceflight to this coming February to allow additional time to complete avionics and systems installations," Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said on Wednesday, during a call the company held to discuss its financial results for the second quarter of 2026.

"No single issue is driving the schedule push," he added. "Rather, we have experienced modest time-duration extension across hundreds of relatively small but important installation tasks involved in the first build of our new spaceship."

The coming mission won't be Virgin Galactic's first commercial spaceflight overall. That occurred in June 2023 and was performed by the company's VSS Unity space plane, which was retired a year later following its seventh operational, customer-carrying flight.

Rather, Colglazier was referring to the debut of the company's first "Delta class" vehicle, an advanced iteration that's designed to fly much more frequently than Unity ever did — twice per week, if all goes to plan.

Virgin Galactic is currently building two Delta planes, which will be broadly similar to Unity in most ways. They will be piloted vehicles that seat six passengers, for example, and will take off beneath the wings of a carrier plane. That mothercraft will drop the Delta vehicles at an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters), after which they'll ignite their rocket motors and head to suborbital space.

Their suborbital jaunts will likely last 60 to 90 minutes, and they'll end with a landing at the same runway where they started.

The second Delta spaceship is expected to join the first one at Spaceport America in New Mexico — Virgin Galactic's commercial hub — in March 2027, Colglazier said.

The view from Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity vehicle during one of its trips to suborbital space. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic)

Colglazier also announced that Virgin Galactic's latest "tranche" of passenger bookings was oversubscribed, demonstrating a continuing strong demand from customers despite the flight hiatus. The per-seat price for that tranche was $750,000 — a number that's no longer available.

"We have retired the $750,000 price point, and we plan to open a new tranche of spaceflight expeditions this fall at higher price points," Colglazier said.

He didn't say what the new price would be. But the jump could be considerable, based on recent history: The ticket price before $750,000 was $600,000, and the one before that was $450,000.

Virgin Galactic lost nearly $56 million in Q2 2026, the company announced in Wednesday's earnings call. That was an improvement over Q2 2025, when the company was about $67 million in the red.

But things should change considerably next year, according to the company.

"With our second [Delta] spaceship entering service, we continue to forecast that we will achieve a flight rate of 10 or more spaceflights per month by the end of the second quarter of 2027," Virgin Galactic Chief Financial Officer Doug Ahrens said during Wednesday's call.

"This flight rate is an unprecedented achievement in human spaceflight, and this is made possible with our highly reusable spaceship design," he added. "Given these flight rate expectations, we continue to forecast quarterly positive cash flow within 2027."

The outlook is even rosier over the long haul, Ahrens stressed.

"We expect each new spaceship to cost approximately $60 million to produce," he said. "Given a conservative lifetime estimate of 500 flights per spaceship, with six astronauts per spaceflight, average pricing of $600,000 per spaceflight expedition, and a contribution margin over 80% per spaceflight, each new spaceship has the potential to generate over $1.4 billion of lifetime contribution margin."

Virgin Galactic will be the only game in town once it gets back up and running. Its chief competitor in the suborbital space tourism business, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, recently put its flights on hold to focus on helping NASA return astronauts to the moon.

Blue Origin has never revealed its ticket prices, but Ahrens said they were believed to be in the $1 million to $2 million range.

"I don't think we need to be driving our prices up that quickly," he said. "But there is strong and solid demand, and we do expect each time we release a tranche of tickets, it will be priced higher than the tranche before. And that's appropriate, so I think you'll see us do that for a little bit longer."

The Perseid meteor shower peaked last night in spectacular fashion, dazzling stargazers as countless shooting stars blazed overhead mere hours after a total solar eclipse saw the lunar disk hide the sun over Greenland, Iceland and Spain.

Perseid shooting stars appear as Earth enters the debris trail cast off by the icy comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Each year, countless shards of this ancient comet collide with our wandering planet. What follows is truly spectacular.

Most are no larger than a particle of dust, or grain of sand. Yet the incredible velocity at which they strike our atmosphere — 37 miles (59 kilometers) per second on average — sees many carve a fiery path as they disintegrate in Earth's sky, which is easily visible to the naked eye.

Countless photographers were primed and ready to capture this magnificent display as Earth passed through the densest region of Swift-Tuttle debris trail, heralding the appearance of hundreds of shooting stars.

Read on to see a selection of our favorite photos of the 2026 Perseid meteor shower, taken in the beautifully dark nights surrounding the August new moon phase.

Best photos of the 2026 Perseid meteor shower

One of our readers sent in this gorgeous shot. Dimitar Birachoski, from Ohrid, Macedonia caught several Perseid meteors streaking over Galicica National Park on Aug. 12, 2026, using a Nikon Z6iii camera.

"I've got the Pleiades, Andromeda galaxy and Milky Way with the Perseids," Birachoski told Space.com via email.

(Image credit: Dimitar Birachoski)

Photographer Morteza Nikoubazl also caught a Perseid meteor streaking beside the famous Pleaides star cluster as seen from Semnan, Iran.

(Image credit: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, a Perseid meteor was spotted as the setting sun illuminated the skies over the Negev Desert in southern Israel, on Aug. 11, 2026.

(Image credit: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Milky Way Galaxy also showed its face during the Perseid meteor shower over the Negev Desert on Aug. 11, 2026.

(Image credit: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)

This long streak left by a Perseid meteor was photographed above Pedernales Falls State Park in Johnson City, Texas on Aug. 12, 2026.

(Image credit: Rick Kern/Getty Images)

A meteor (left) lit up the night sky during the Perseid meteor shower just hours after a total solar eclipse was seen from San Asensio, Spain on Aug. 12, 2026. 

(Image credit: ANDER GILLENEA / AFP via Getty Images)

Farther east, Ismail Aslandag caught a green meteor above Ucayak Church in Kirsehir, Turkiye on Aug. 12, 2026.

(Image credit: Ismail Aslandag/Anadolu via Getty Images)

This long exposure captures Earth's rotation in the form of circular star trails. A Perseid "shooting star" lit up the swirling scene above Shaoguan in China's Guangdong Province on Aug. 12, 2026.

(Image credit: Wang Fanlu/VCG via Getty Images)

Farther north, photographer Fan Chengzhu saw a Perseid meteor streaking into the distance over Shitan Village in China's Anhui Province on Aug. 13, 2026.

(Image credit: Fan Chengzhu/VCG via Getty Images)

Earth won't break free of Swift-Tuttle's debris trail until Aug. 24, so there are still plenty of Perseids to be seen brightening the summer sky if you're a little late to the show. Just be prepared for a significantly lower hourly rate compared to the peak.

Want to try your hand at capturing one? Then be sure to read our guide to photographing shooting stars, along with our roundups of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: Did you snag a photo of a Perseid and want to share it with Space.com's readers? Then please send your photo(s), comments, name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

On Aug. 13, 2014, a company called DigitalGlobe launched what was then the sharpest-eyed satellite of all time. WorldView-3 is a high-resolution imaging satellite that can resolve features as small as 1 foot (31 centimeters) across.

Its instruments allow it to peer through fog and smoke to see Earth's surface at a level of detail that was unprecedented for a non-governmental spacecraft. WorldView-3 lifted off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and has been orbiting Earth ever since.

The WorldView-3 Earth-observing satellite. (Image credit: Maxar Technologies)Why it mattered

WorldView-3 pushed forward the technology of Earth-observing satellites. With its high resolution and ability to create mosaic images and deliver data in record time, the spacecraft changed the game in terms of studying Earth from space. While technology continued to advance beyond WorldView-3, it was a critical step in the process. For example, its data has helped researchers better track methane emissions coming from offshore oil and gas rigs, which is important as methane is a powerful greenhouse gas which contributes substantially to climate change.

WorldView-3's data is sorted by an algorithm that helps filter, process and color-correct images that might have been affected by atmospheric effects. With all of the imagery and data from satellites like WorldView-3, researchers can better track and understand contributors to climate change like methane plumes, as well as monitor deforestation and agriculture and study the spread and effects of natural disasters like wildfire.

Lastly, in an unexpected but amazing find, in 2015, archaeologists used data from WorldView-3 to discover what is thought to be a lost Viking village in Newfoundland. The near-infrared imagery captured by the satellite helped an international team to spot this village, which was only the second Viking settlement found in North America.

The moment just before totality during the Aug. 12, 2026 total solar eclipse, captured from the deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

The total solar eclipse of Aug. 12, 2026 was one for the books. And this photo, snapped just as the eclipse was about to enter totality, really captures the drama of the moment.

What is it?

On Aug. 12, 2026, millions of people around the world witnessed a total solar eclipse. This happens when the moon passes in front of the sun, completely blocking it from our perspective here on Earth. (During a partial solar eclipse, only part of the sun's face is blocked by the moon.)

Observers lucky enough to be in the narrow "path of totality" that day got an experience they'll never forget.

Why is it incredible?

The chance to observe a total solar eclipse doesn't come along very often and is truly surreal and magical. While you might logically know that it's a predictable result of orbital dynamics, it's still incredibly strange in the moment to watch the sun disappear behind a black disk.

During totality, you experience a sort of false nighttime in the middle of the day. This can trigger strange responses from wildlife, with animals that are typically nocturnal coming out to see what's going on, confused about why night arrived at what feels like the wrong time.

Space.com skywatching editor Daisy Dobrijevic traveled to the Scoresby Sund off the coast of Greenland to experience the total solar eclipse from the deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage, and she's been taking us all along on her journey.

"I couldn't believe my eyes. I knew exactly what to expect — I’ve written about total solar eclipses countless times and given talks about them — but nothing prepared me for the feeling of actually seeing it," Dobrijevic said about her experience watching the eclipse. "I was completely in awe. As thin clouds drifted in towards the end of totality, they only added to the drama and emotion of an already extraordinary sight."

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD! ANYONE YET TO WATCH "A CASE OF CHIAROSCURO" SHOULD PROCEED WITH CAUTION TO AVOID VIOLATING TEMPORAL PRIME DIRECTIVES.

You're on a top-secret mission to recover a lost Federation probe from enemy territory. A close encounter with a Klingon cruiser forces you into hiding on the surface of an alien world, which — thanks, in part, to the local star's radiation making everything appear stylishly monochrome — looks like it's been lifted from a classic 20th-century film noir. You dress up as one of the locals on this occupied world, and quickly learn that you're the spitting image of the leader of the local resistance. What are the chances?

This being "Star Trek", the odds are nowhere near as long as they could — and maybe should — be. In fact, the galaxy is so chock-full of doppelgangers, clones and lookalikes that it's a wonder Una "Number One" Chin-Riley hadn't encountered her double before the latest episode of "Strange New Worlds", "A Case of Chiaroscuro".

(Image credit: Paramount)

This may explain why Dr M'Benga doesn't think anything is particularly amiss. "In a universe as vast as ours, the real mystery is that we don't stumble onto our doppelgangers more often," he claims. "That we have found Una's is a momentary stroke of luck."

That said, the origin stories of Trek's previous escapees from the planet Xerox are usually a little more complex — and outwardly sci-fi — than coincidence. The matter transporters found on every Starfleet vessel, for example, have repeatedly given actors the chance to play two roles at once.

(Image credit: Paramount)

In theory, transporter tech breaks you down into your constituent atoms, beams those particles across space, and reassembles them in the right order at the other end. But, in the event of a glitch, transporter rooms effectively become highly sophisticated 3D printers, creating duplicates indistinguishable from the original beamee.

In the "Original Series" episode "The Enemy Within", James T Kirk is split into two versions of himself, one good, the other evil. In this metaphysical exploration of self, it turns out you can't have one half without the other, forcing Spock and co to reintegrate the two Kirks in order to save their captain.

Will Riker also experiences transporter-induced imposter syndrome in "The Next Generation" episode "Second Chances". He learns that a beaming error on the USS Potemkin created an exact facsimile eight years earlier, and Riker 2.0 has been living alone on the remote Nervala IV ever since. Alas, this alt version (who opts to go by the name of Thomas) doesn't find it easy living in the shadow of the Enterprise-D's highly commended first officer, and eventually quits Starfleet to defect to the Maquis resistance organization.

(Image credit: Paramount)

When Bradward Boimler experiences similar duplication issues in "Lower Decks", it's his double, William, who makes better use of their resources. He ultimately finds himself in the captain's chair of a top-secret Section 31 vessel staffed by doppelgangers from alternative realities, including "Deep Space Nine"'s Dr Bashir, "Enterprise"'s T'Pol, and multiple incarnations of "Voyager"'s perennial ensign, Harry Kim.

"Trek"'s parallel universes are arguably even more conducive to duplication than transporter accidents. Indeed, even the Harry Kim who eventually makes it back from the Delta Quadrant in "Voyager" is an alternative version, transferred from a USS Voyager slightly out of phase with the original. (To be fair, OG Harry had just been sucked into the vacuum of space, so the switcheroo was easy to justify — and good news for actor Garrett Wang.)

But "Star Trek"'s most famous doppelgangers from another dimension hail from the infamous Mirror Universe, where the morally dubious Terran Empire crushes non-Earthers under a bloodthirsty boot — while the Federation traditionally comes in peace, these guys make no secret of their love of shooting to kill. Crews from "Enterprise", "Discovery", the Original Series, "DS9" and "Prodigy" have all come face to face with their evil twins. Few imposters have been quite as easy to spot as Terran Empire Spock, however, whose trademark goatee is something of a giveaway.

(Image credit: Paramount)

Shapeshifters are even trickier customers, seeing as they can — in theory — take the form of anyone they want. Kirk shares facetime with himself when Chameloid Marta impersonates him while messing up their attempt to escape the Rura Penthe penal colony in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country".

"I can't believe I kissed you," says Kirk. "Must have been your lifelong ambition," Kirk replies — sort that one out, Sigmund Freud.

The metamorphing Changelings of the Dominion also prove a particularly tricksy enemy in "Deep Space Nine", thanks to their ability to replicate everyone from Dr Bashir and General Martok to the Federation's in-house shapeshifter, Odo.

(Image credit: Paramount)

And then there's "Trek"'s dalliances with the more traditional sci-fi trope of cloning, the most famous example showing up just in time for "The Next Generation" crew's final mission.

The Big Bad in the 2002 movie "Nemesis" is Shinzon, a Jean-Luc Picard duplicate created by Romulan scientists to infiltrate the Federation. The irony, of course, is that this clone looks nothing like the source material. In fact, the chances of anyone buying that Tom Hardy will one day look like Patrick Stewart are close to zero — Dr M'Benga may believe that we should bump into our doppelgangers more often, but even he wouldn't fall for that one.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.

Yesterday (Aug.12), millions of people enjoyed a total solar eclipse as it swept across parts of Greenland, Iceland and Spain, while a partial solar eclipse was visible across much of Europe and northwest Africa.

If all that eclipse excitement has you eager for more, the good news is you won't have to wait long, because two remarkable solar eclipses are coming in 2027. First comes a dramatic "ring of fire" annular solar eclipse on Feb 6, followed six months later by the total solar eclipse on Aug. 2 — an event many eclipse chasers are already calling the "eclipse of the century".

First up, a dazzling "ring of fire"

On Feb. 6, 2027, an annular solar eclipse will be visible across parts of Chile, Argentina and the coastal parts of West Africa, while the partial phase of the eclipse where the moon takes a "bite" out of the sun will be visible across South America and West Africa.

An annular solar eclipse happens when the moon passes directly in front of the sun when it is slightly farther away from Earth than during a total solar eclipse. As such, the moon appears a little smaller in the sky and doesn't completely cover the sun, leaving a brilliant ring of sunlight around the moon's silhouette, the "ring of fire".

The global path of the 'ring of fire' annular solar eclipse on Feb. 6, 2027. (Image credit: Created and annotated by Jamie Carter using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User Community. Eclipse path from Xavier Jubier.))The "eclipse of the century"

If the "ring of fire" eclipse wasn't enough, 2027 serves up another, even more spectacular eclipse.

On Aug. 2, 2027, the moon's shadow will race across southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, treating skywatchers with one of the longest total solar eclipses of the century. At its greatest point, totality will last an extraordinary 6 minutes and 23 seconds — more than twice as long as many other total solar eclipses.

Created using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User Community), path from Xavier M JubierCreated using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User Community), path from Xavier M JubierCreated using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User Community), path from Xavier M JubierCreated using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User Community), path from Xavier M Jubier

Combined with favorable August weather across parts of North Africa, it's easy to see why many eclipse enthusiasts are already planning their trips in advance.

If you're thinking about experiencing the Aug. 2, 2027 total solar eclipse for yourself, now is the perfect time to start planning. We've rounded up expert travel tips to help you choose the best viewing location and avoid common pitfalls, as well as 10 unforgettable tours and experiences that will put you right in the heart of one of the greatest celestial events of the century.

Satellites high above Earth may soon have fewer places to hide.

San Francisco-based company Astranis announced today (Aug. 13) that it's developing a line of spacecraft called Perceptor, which will keep an eye on satellite activity in geostationary orbit (GEO).

GEO lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth, an altitude at which orbital speed matches our planet's rotational velocity. It's therefore a popular destination for communications, weather and reconnaissance spacecraft — and, increasingly, an arena for off-Earth spying, as space powers seek to keep tabs on their competitors' activities.

Astranis currently operates five satellites in this distant orbital realm, which "support the U.S. military, bring connectivity to remote areas and provide critical capabilities like GPS," according to the company's website.

It plans to leverage and extend this expertise with Perceptor, helping the U.S. government and other potential customers learn more about what's happening high above our heads. The new line will be based on Astranis' "MicroGEO" satellite platform, so named because it's smaller than typical GEO craft.

"Astranis provides mission-critical infrastructure for strategic higher orbits. What we found is our means to detect and respond to emerging threats to this infrastructure are sorely lacking," John Gedmark, Astranis' CEO and co-founder, said in a statement today.

"There are blind spots that will be used against us if not eliminated," he added. "With Perceptor, we're meeting the increasing demand for security in GEO with our proven on-orbit platform and ability to produce at scale."

Four Astranis MicroGEO satellites, which launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket in December 2024. (Image credit: Astranis)

Perceptor spacecraft will sport a variety of sensors, which will allow them to take the measure of other satellites and their broader GEO surroundings.

"Multi-angle flybys can assess spacecraft capabilities, help troubleshoot anomalies on friendly spacecraft, and provide additional eyes in a domain where awareness has historically been limited," Astranis' statement reads.

Each Perceptor will also be highly maneuverable, using electric propulsion "to traverse the full GEO arc, repositioning dozens of times over its mission lifetime," company representatives added.

The statement does not provide a target timeline for the first Perceptor missions. But the need for such a capability already exists, as the activities of certain Russian and Chinese satellites show.

In 2020, for example, officials with the U.S. Space Force announced that two Russian spacecraft got within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of an American spy satellite, behavior the branch's then-chief described as "unusual and disturbing."

And, in 2023, experts announced that China's TJS-3 GEO spacecraft had taken close looks at USA 233 and USA 298, both of which are thought to be Space Force spy satellites.

For the generation that grew up in the 1980s, the release of the recent big-budget "Masters of the Universe" movie would undoubtedly have conjured up a sense of déjà-vu.

Picture the scene. The year is 1987. You've got the action figures and the Castle Grayskull playset, you've watched every episode of the cartoon again and again, and you can recite He-Man's opening credits voiceover by heart. He has the power!

Then someone tells you there's a live-action film adaptation coming out.

You persuade your parents to take you to the theater, pick up a great big bucket of popcorn, and get ready to be transported to the familiar surroundings of Eternia. And then…

Well, it's fair to say this is not the "Masters of the Universe" you know and love. Sure, leading man Dolph Lundgren is big, but why does he look and dress nothing like He-Man? Who's that Gwildor guy, and what the hell happened to Orko, BattleCat and Prince Adam? Why do He-Man and Skeletor spend so much of the movie on planet Earth? And when are we going to hear that famous theme tune? (Spoiler: you won't.)

(Image credit: Mattel / The Cannon Group)

By the power of Grayskull, this was not the film '80s kids expected, or indeed wanted. But disappointing a pre-teen fanbase was the least of "Masters of the Universe"'s worries. Sales of Mattel's previously all-conquering toyline were way past their peak, while the appetite for films trying to capture "Star Wars"' unique blend of sci-fi and fantasy had all but disappeared. Perhaps more importantly, "MOTU" 1987 had been bankrolled by an ambitious but eccentric studio, whose efforts to break into the mainstream had left it in a financial state so perilous that not even the most powerful man in the universe could save it.

"Masters of the Universe" was one of the undoubted pop culture success stories of the 1980s. Although Mattel had made the mistake of turning down the licence to make "Star Wars" toys, the toy giant responded in spectacular style by launching a fantasy behemoth of its own in 1982. He-Man, Skeletor and their Eternian colleagues would soon become household names, largely thanks to the advertising power of an immensely popular cartoon series.

Decades before "Transformers", "The Lego Movie" and "Barbie" made big money at the box office, producer Edward Pressman had seen the potential in taking a toy franchise to the big screen. There had been early interest in "He-Man" from major studios (including Warner Bros), but — largely thanks to delays caused by management changes at Mattel — interest had waned by the time Cannon Films stepped in to foot the bill.

Throughout the '80s, Cannon had become more renowned for the quantity of its output than the quality, as a pair of ambitious Israeli cousins, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, invested in unashamed B-movies like "Enter the Ninja", Charles Bronson's "Death Wish" sequels, and Chuck Norris vehicle "The Delta Force". The studio had around 40 movies in production at the time "Masters of the Universe" got the green light, but was keen to make a move on tentpole blockbuster territory. As well as financing the disastrous "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace", Cannon had also paid Sylvester Stallone a record-breaking fee to headline arm-wrestling drama "Over the Top". Both flopped at the box office.

Despite being "a little bit reluctant because it was [based on] a toy line", Stallone's "Rocky IV" co-star Dolph Lundgren signed up to play the mighty He-Man. The Swedish actor looked more like the lead singer of a hair metal band than the sword-wielding hero of the cartoons, though his impressive physique (coupled with He-Man's scanty wardrobe) ensured it was hard to find a convincing stunt double.

Director Gary Goddard also became concerned that his leading man (topping the bill for the first time) wasn't delivering dialogue as he wanted, and subtly chopped some of Lundgren's lines. He reasoned that heroes played by Clint Eastwood are often men of few words, with their sidekicks usually the ones supplying the supplemental information.

(Image credit: Mattel / The Cannon Group)

There were never any doubts about the man playing He-Man's nemesis, Skeletor, however. Frank Langella had caught Goddard's eye in "Amadeus" on Broadway, and — buried under some impressive make-up — relished the opportunity to ham it up as Eternia's villain-in-chief. But this dark, calculating interpretation was a universe away from the cackling, frequently thwarted bad guy of the cartoon series. It wasn't the only way the film would completely lose track of what had made kids fall in love with the "Masters of the Universe" brand.

Even in 2026, with the help of CG effects and a colossal budget, the new "Masters of the Universe" had to pick and choose which classic Eternians — including Mekaneck, one of the weirdest "Masters of the Universe" characters — made the transfer to the big screen.

Spare a thought, though, for the 1987 fans who had to make do with (on Team He-Man) Man-at-Arms, Teela and the Sorceress; and (on Team Skeletor) Evil-Lyn and Beast Man.

(Image credit: Mattel / The Cannon Group)

Hovering wizard sidekick Orko was replaced by a new character, Thenurian inventor Gwildor, while Skeletor's rogues' gallery was expanded to the tune of lizard man Saurod, the sword-wielding Blade, and the not-sure-what-he-is Karg. Long-standing favorites like Trap-Jaw, Tri-Klops, and Mer-Man were conspicuous by their absence.

Skeletor was supported by legions of laser-wielding, Stormtrooper-esque soldiers, though — thanks to Mattel's mandate that He-Man couldn't kill anyone — these were robots rather than people. He-Man also tended to favor a laser gun of his own, mostly keeping his famous Sword of Power for show. He didn't even need the sword for a big transformation moment, seeing as alter-ego Prince Adam and his green tiger BFF Cringer were conveniently jettisoned from the story.

The movie's biggest problem, however, was arguably transferring the action to Earth. This didn't contradict franchise mythology (He-Man's mom, Queen Marlena, had long been established as an astronaut from Earth), and the new film has followed suit by bringing Adam to Oklahoma City. But in "Masters of the Universe" 1987, the decision simply made the action feel small — despite the best efforts of legendary "Star Wars" effects veteran Richard Edlund.

(Image credit: Mattel / The Cannon Group)

Human teens Courteney Cox (the "Friends" star's first movie role) and Robert Duncan McNeill ("Star Trek: Voyager") did their best to grapple with an extended visit from walking, talking action figures, but you'd never know this was a He-Man movie if people didn't keep saying his name.

When Eternia did get a look in, it exposed the film's financial limitations, as over-investment and a series of expensive flops started to catch up with Golan and Globus. Goddard had wanted to shoot exteriors in Iceland to capture a more otherworldly vibe but had to make do with a few days at Vasquez Rocks (a location near Los Angeles that frequently doubled for alien worlds in "Star Trek") towards the end of production.

Money was so tight that, on the final scheduled day of the shoot, the plug was pulled as soon as the clock struck midnight, before Goddard had all the coverage he wanted. The director later admitted that he made a deal to stump up $50,000 of his own money (a sum matched by Cannon) to fund one last day of shooting on He-Man and Skeletor's climactic battle. At least the film would have an ending…

(Image credit: Mattel / The Cannon Company)

But was it worth it? "Masters of the Universe" made a disappointing $17.3 million at the US box office. It was just the 65th highest-grossing release of 1987, and some way behind infamous stinker "Jaws: The Revenge". It certainly wasn't enough to save Cannon, which had sold off a large chunk of its film library earlier that year in order to stave off bankruptcy. The studio (by then known as Cannon Pictures) would release its final film in 1994.

"The Cannon boys were very charismatic and very ambitious," Lundgren recalled in the documentary "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films".

"They were guys who came to Hollywood to take it over in a quick sort of way, perhaps not playing by all the rules but sometimes that works, and it worked for a while for these guys too. 'Masters' was their big shot, and even though it didn't reach the heights they'd wished for with 'Star Wars' and so forth, I think it's still a decent picture compared to some of the others they made. 'Masters' certainly beats 'Superman IV' in watchability."

"Masters of the Universe" 1987 is available to stream on Prime Video in the US and on Prime Video and ITVX in the UK.

And just like that, it's over.

Total solar eclipses are incredible moments in time, but they are fleeting. As the moon passes directly in front of the sun and its shadow sweeps across Earth's surface, the temperature drops and the light takes on an eerie twilight quality. Birds and other animals go quiet. It's a spectacle unlike any other. And for millions today who were lucky enough to be in the path of totality across Greenland, Iceland and Spain, that's exactly what they experienced.

"I cannot believe what I just witnessed. I knew what to expect  — I've seen thousands of photos but nothing compares to that feeling you get when you watch the sun transform before your very eyes," Space.com skywatching editor Daisy Dobrijevic said after watching the eclipse from the deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund, Greenland on Aug. 12, 2026.

The sun during a total solar eclipse as seen from the deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund, Greenland on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

"It looked so big in the sky with the delicate corona streaming out into the abyss. Jupiter, Mercury and Venus even joined in the show. The huge prominence was the icing on the cake," Dobrijevic added.

"This is something I will never forget and I feel privileged to have experienced it in one of the most remarkable environments on Earth and alongside an incredible group of people aboard HX Expedition's MS Spitsbergen."

The sun during a total solar eclipse as seen from deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

The 182 mile-wide (293-kilometer) path of totality — the line "drawn" on the face our our planet by the moon's shadow — began near Siberia over the Arctic Ocean and first arced down into eastern Greenland.

From there, the path stretched across western Iceland and then into northern Spain where millions gathered to witness the spectacle.

"It was the most incredible thing I've seen in my entire life," said Space.com skywatching writer Anthony Wood after witnessing the eclipse from Valoria la Buena, Spain alongside a team of citizen scientists from the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast initiative. "It feels like it really shouldn't be happening. It strikes the lizard part of your brain that just tells you that this shouldn't be real."

A total solar eclipse as seen in Valoria la Buena, Spain on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: Anthony Wood/Future)

The path then crossed the Balearic Islands just east of Spain before ending over the Mediterranean Sea as the sun set.

A total solar eclipse is seen above the mountains on Aug. 12, 2026 in Segur de Calafell, Spain. (Image credit: Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

Eclipse-watchers inside the narrow path of the moon's shadow were given a rare naked-eye glimpse of the sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona. Witnessing the crown-like shape of the corona stretching away from the dark shadow of the moon is one of the most breathtaking moments of an eclipse. Photographs don't do it justice, as they rarely do.

A total solar eclipse is seen from San Millán de los Caballeros, Spain, Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)

Outside of the path of totality, skywatchers throughout Europe and Scandinavia were able to catch a glimpse of a partial solar eclipse — in which the moon appears to take a "bite" out of the sun.

Space.com's Harry Bennett captured the partial eclipse from a hilltop in Somerset, England, shooting the scene with a Unistellar Equinox 2 smart telescope equipped with a solar filter.

A partial solar eclipse as seen on Aug. 12, 2026 from Kelston Roundhill in Bath, Somerset, England. (Image credit: Harry Bennett/Future)

The partial solar eclipse was also visible for much of the northeastern United States and as far west as Michigan. Much of Canada got to witness the partial eclipse too, and so did Alaska.

A total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026 as seen from Segur de Calafell, Spain. (Image credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images)What causes a total solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes directly in front of the sun as seen from Earth. When this alignment happens, the moon casts its shadow along a line known as the path of totality. Only within this stripe will you be able to experience full totality.

The sun's corona glows as the moon completely blocks the Sun during the totality phase of the total solar eclipse as seen from San Asensio, La Rioja region, on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: Ander Gillenea / AFP via Getty Images)

Another factor to consider is that the moon has an elliptical, or oval-shaped, orbit. This means that it's sometimes closer to Earth than other times. Total solar eclipses only occur when the moon is at just the right distance from Earth, making it appear the same size in the sky as the sun (or even slightly larger). This obscures the blinding light of the sun, allowing viewers to glimpse our star's outer atmosphere, or corona.

The moon passes over the sun's horizon during a partial solar eclipse at Abbadia, le Château Observatoire in Hendaye, southwestern France, on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: Philippe Lopez / AFP via Getty Images)

When the moon is a bit farther away from Earth, it appears relatively smaller. And when solar eclipses fall on a date when the moon is at this greater distance from our planet, the moon doesn't completely block the sun. This creates what's known as an annular solar eclipse, or a "ring of fire" in the sky.

A total solar eclipse is seen on Aug. 12, 2026 in the Riet Vell Nature Reserve in Amposta, Spain. (Image credit: James Breeden/Getty Images)When is the next total solar eclipse?

The next total solar eclipse will occur on Aug. 2, 2027 and will be visible throughout a 160-mile-wide (258-kilometer) path that crosses southern Spain, northern Morocco, northern Algeria, northern Tunisia, northeast Libya, central Egypt, the northeastern tip of Sudan, southwest Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the northeastern tip of Somalia.

Outside of this path, a partial solar eclipse will be visible to most of Europe, much of the African continent, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, eastern Canada and parts of Maine.

A partial solar eclipse is seen at the Mariager Fjord in Denmark, on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: Bo Amstrup / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images)

In North America, the next total solar eclipse will take place on March 30, 2033, and will be visible from Alaska. Looking farther out, the U.S. states of Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, and areas of Canada will witness a total solar eclipse on Aug. 23, 2044.

Submit your eclipse photos! If you captured a photo of the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send photos, videos, a brief description of your experience, and your name, location and content usage permission release to spacephotos@space.com.

The first breathtaking photos of totality for the total solar eclipse 2026 are pouring in, revealing incredible views of the sun's atmosphere radiating out from behind the moon's colossal silhouette.

Eclipse chasers have spent the past few hours watching in awe, as the moon transformed the sun into an incandescent crescent in the run up to totality, before swallowing it entirely in the skies over Scoresby Sund, Greenland as seen from the deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage.

Read on to see spectacular photos of the sun's corona glowing in the false twilight of totality. And be sure to stay with us in the coming hours as the moon's central shadow sweeps over Europe, before ultimately disappearing from view off the north coast of Africa at 2:34 p.m. EDT (1834 GMT).

First photos of totality

The first photos of totality revealed the sun's corona, visible thanks to the moon blocking most of our star's light.

Totality during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026, seen from deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

Luckily, weather cooperated for the eclipse chasers on the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund, Greenland.

Totality during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026, seen from deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

Space.com's own skywatching editor Daisy Dobrijevic was onboard, capturing the first images of totality.

Totality during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026, seen from deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

As the moon drifted past the sun, the first glimpses of the sun began to reveal themselves as the path of totality moved onwards towards Spain.

Totality during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026, seen from deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

We'll have more coverage on our total solar eclipse live blog throughout the day, including reports from Skywatching Editor Daisy Dobrijevic as she catches the entirety of the eclipse unfolding in the skies over Greenland aboard an HX Expeditions cruise ship.

Totality during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026, seen from deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund. (Image credit: Space.com/Daisy Dobrijevic)

Skywatching Writer Anthony Wood will also be giving you the live updates from his vantage point in central Spain, where the eclipsed sun will set below the horizon just a few short hours from now.

Totality during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026, seen from deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse voyage in Scoresby Sund. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your eclipse photos with Space.com's readers, then please send your image(s), comments, name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

A radiation-shielding vest might one day protect astronauts from dangerous, random outbursts from the sun, a new study finds.

More than 50 years after the final Apollo mission, NASA's Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon. To succeed, this project must protect astronauts from solar radiation, especially the intense and unpredictable radiation from solar storms. Coating an entire spacecraft with a meaningfully thick layer of radiation shielding remains impractical due to weight constraints, but wrapping astronauts in protective garments may potentially be helpful.

In the new study, researchers experimented with the AstroRad vest, which was designed by the Israeli startup StemRad with support from the Israel Space Agency and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. The garment was created to protect astronauts from explosions from the sun known as solar particle events.

The "phantoms" Helga and Zohar inside the Orion spacecraft at NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building prior to the launch of Artemis I. Zohar, right, wore the AstroRad vest while Helga did not. (Image credit: NASA/Lockheed Martin/DLR)

"Radiation in space is unavoidable, and a single major solar particle event can make a substantial contribution to an astronaut's lifetime risk of radiation-induced cancer," study co-author Oren Milstein, CEO and co-founder of StemRad, told Space.com. "By significantly reducing that contribution, personal shielding could be particularly important for future lunar and Mars missions."

When it comes to protection against radiation, lead is excellent at blocking hazardous forms of light, such as X-rays and gamma rays. However, lead is much less effective at defending against the kinds of dangerous particles that can hurtle through space. For instance, when fast high-energy electrons known as beta particles strike dense lead atoms, they can trigger a shower of X-rays that are more harmful than the beta particles themselves. And if neutrons strike lead atoms, they can knock loose a spray of neutrons from the atoms' nuclei, worsening the impact from the radiation.

Instead, AstroRad relies on a high-density plastic rich in hydrogen. Among the elements, hydrogen possesses the highest density of electrons per atom, which can help create a dense shield to protect against incoming particles. At the same time, hydrogen atoms normally do not have neutrons, so if neutrons hit them, they cannot generate the kind of dangerous neutron sprays that can happen with lead atoms.

Moreover, the plastic in AstroRad is much lighter than lead. This makes it easier to move around in garments incorporating the plastic, and more practical for space missions in which weight is a major limitation.

The scientists combined thousands of hexagonal rods of the rigid plastic together like scales to create a flexible garment. All in all, each vest weighed about 57 pounds (26 kilograms).

The scientists developed a vest rather than a full-body suit or a helmet because "different organs and tissues have very different sensitivities to radiation, so shielding every part of the body equally is not the most effective approach," study co-author Jordan Houri, lead scientist for space exploration at StemRad, told Space.com. "At the same time, a full-body suit would be much harder to put on and move around in."

The shielding thickness of the AstroRad vest was based on how sensitive to radiation the underlying organs were. This strategy provides about a 30% greater reduction in the dose of radiation a person receives compared with distributing the same amount of shielding uniformly across the body, Houri said.

The researchers tested their vest during NASA's uncrewed Artemis I moon mission in late 2022 using a pair of extraordinarily complex dummies called phantoms. These artificial torsos were constructed of plastics that mimicked the density of human tissue, bone and organs, and each was equipped with more than 5,600 radiation sensors on and in them.

The two phantoms were designed to be adult females, since previous research found that breasts and ovaries are especially susceptible to radiation damage.

"Women are predicted to face a higher risk of radiation-induced cancer," Milstein said. "Targeted shielding could help narrow that difference in risk between male and female astronauts."

Since the phantoms mimicked women, they were given women's names, Zohar and Helga. "Helga was contributed to the experiment by the German Aerospace Center, and Helga is a traditional German name," Milstein said. "Zohar was contributed by the Israel Space Agency, which selected the name through a public outreach campaign. Zohar is a traditional Hebrew name meaning 'radiance,' which we thought was particularly fitting."

Assembling the Zohar phantom with the AstroRad vest at Kennedy Space Center prior to launch of Artemis I. (Image credit: NASA/DLR)

Zohar and Helga flew seated in NASA's Orion spacecraft; Zohar was equipped with an AstroRad vest, while Helga was not. Although Orion did not encounter a significant solar outburst during its 26-day mission to lunar orbit and back, the researchers were able to extrapolate how much solar radiation astronauts might experience based on what the phantoms encountered passing through the inner Van Allen belt of radiation surrounding Earth.

When the scientists analyzed past solar particle events, they found the AstroRad vest would have significantly reduced the dose of radiation a person during those outbursts — for instance, by nearly 60% for a solar particle event that happened in August 1972.

"We had originally anticipated something closer to 45%, so when we first saw the result, we thought we needed to go back and find an error," Houri said. "Instead, the detailed analysis showed that AstroRad's approach of providing targeted shielding to the most radiation-sensitive organs and tissues was even more effective than we had projected."

Such a reduction could spare astronauts the equivalent of up to 193 days of deep-space radiation exposure. "The most important implication is that AstroRad could help overcome one of the major health challenges limiting long-duration human exploration beyond Earth," Milstein said.

3D rendering of the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE) during NASA’s Artemis I mission, showing the two radiation dosimetry phantoms, Helga and Zohar inside the Orion spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA/Lockheed Martin/DLR/StemRad)

AstroRad is not something astronauts would wear continuously throughout an entire mission, Houri said. "AstroRad was developed as an emergency countermeasure for solar particle events, so astronauts would only wear it when radiation levels are elevated, typically for periods of hours or days," he explained.

Still, "although it is not something astronauts would need to wear throughout an entire mission, we designed the vest to remain usable for many hours at a time," Milstein said. During tests with the vests on the International Space Station, "several crew members even slept with it on."

The level of radiation protection the AstroRad vest provided was similar to that supplied by the Orion spacecraft's onboard storm shelter, "while allowing the astronaut wearing it to leave the shelter and continue mission-critical tasks," Houri said. "AstroRad can be used on its own or together with a shelter, but one of its main advantages is that an astronaut can remain protected while moving around the cabin and carrying out essential mission operations rather than remaining inside the shelter."

The scientists are now investigating whether it is possible to manufacture radiation shielding in space using onboard materials. For instance, in collaboration with Florida aerospace company Redwire, "we have already demonstrated that it is possible to 3D-print AstroRad components from recycled polyethylene aboard the International Space Station," Milstein said.

The scientists detailed their findings online today (Aug. 12) in the journal Science Advances.

The most distant 'black hole star' yet found, existing in the universe less than 660 million years after the Big Bang, has provided a vital clue as to the origin of the mysterious "little red dots" that populate the James Webb Space Telescope's images of the early universe.

The consensus seems to be that these bizarre objects, which were first discovered in 2022, are growing supermassive black holes entombed within huge clouds of gas that have spectrums similar to cool, red stars, such as red giants. Recently, astronomers have been finding that some of these objects are placed within the center of young galaxies whose light has been traveling for about 12 billion years, give or take a billion, to reach us. Given their distance and faintness, black hole stars' light is difficult to disentangle from the light of a surrounding galaxy, especially when we know there is likely a galaxy there that's too faint for the JWST to resolve.

However, a newly discovered black hole star, unearthed during a JWST program called the Mirage or Miracle (MoM) survey, is acting as a kind of a missing link.

"The Mirage or Miracle survey was designed specifically to target sources considered 'risky,' meaning they could either be amazing discoveries or just interlopers, such as some cold nearby stars that look like distant galaxies," Jorryt Matthee of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria and a co-investigator on the MoM survey said in a statement. In particular, the survey focuses on objects that look like they could be very high redshift galaxies (around a redshift of 10 or more, which equates to having existed about at least 13.1 billion years ago).

The black hole star found by the survey has been named MoM-BH*-1 and is the best example yet of a "naked" black hole star, meaning astronomers are fairly certain it exists in space on its own rather than inside a burgeoning galaxy. This means all of its light is generated by accretion onto the black hole at the center of the cloud. Though we cannot see this accretion because of the obscuring gas cloud, this light energizes the surrounding cloud from within, causing it to glow just as energy generated within the sun causes its outer layers to radiate.

"The spectrum we detected is our best evidence of a cloak of gas feeding an early forming black hole," Rohan Naidu of the University of Hawaii, who led the team who discovered MoM-BH*-1 and is co-leader of the MoM survey, said in the statement.

Some of the JWST's little red dot discoveries. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Dale Kocevski (Colby College))

Intriguingly, MoM-BH*-1 lies close in space to a young galaxy at the same redshift, and estimates suggest that it will take another 100 million years for the black hole star to collide and merge with the galaxy. Naidu and Matthee's team modeled what the spectrum of the galaxy would look like after it has merged with MoM-BH*-1, and found that it would look very much like the little red dots already known to exist within galaxies.

"Considering the black hole star as a template for the black hole component of little red dots helps clarify many of the uncertainties about them," said Matthee. "If embedded in similar host galaxies, black hole stars like MoM-BH*-1 might well serve as the central engines of baby quasars."

In this way, MoM-BH*-1 provides strong evidence for the object at the heart of faint galaxies encompassing little red dots as being a black hole star. Recent observations of some little red dots at lower redshifts have shown the cloud of gas around the black hole begin to disintegrate, exposing the black hole and the X-rays produced by the accretion of gas onto it. These black holes appear to be growing fast, and the environments surrounding such active black holes become highly luminous, creating a quasar.

An artist's impression depicting the similarity between stars and black hole stars, except that black hole stars are at least 100,000 times larger than the sun. (Image credit: Rohan Naidu (University of Hawaii).)

"Astronomers have never lacked imagination: since the discovery of quasars, there has been no dearth of theories to explain how these black holes grew so massive so fast," said Naidu. "Something spectacular must have happened in the early universe. Now with JWST, we can directly observe this era and see for ourselves which scenarios actually occur."

Learning of the birth of supermassive black holes and whether they predate the galaxies that surround them was one of the primary science goals of the JWST before it launched. In this it has been tremendously successful so far. Despite little red dots having only been discovered four years ago, research into them and black hole stars is accelerating, with new findings coming out now almost on a weekly basis.

"These are incredibly exciting times with nearly a thousand papers and preprints on little red dots in the past two to three years," said Matthee. "Far from a mirage, this might well be a cosmic miracle."

The findings were published on Aug. 13 in the journal Nature.

On Aug. 12, 2005, NASA launched its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission lifted off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V-401 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (now known as the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station) in Florida.

Some of the best cameras ever launched into space are on MRO, and the spacecraft has taken some seriously amazing photos of Mars. The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, takes super-sharp photos of the Martian surface and has helped NASA scout the Red Planet for suitable landing sites for rovers like Curiosity. It also serves as a data relay station for other spacecraft on Mars that need to beam data back to Earth.

MRO has also studied water and ice on Mars, and its cameras have revealed some pretty remarkable landscapes.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in the Hazardous Payload Service Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on July 20, 2005 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Image credit: Matt Stroshane/Getty Images)Why it mattered

Now operational for more than 20 years, MRO serves as one of NASA's oldest spacecraft in operation around the Red Planet. It has become instrumental in the space agency's ability to maintain communication with other probes in orbit around Mars and rovers on the planet's surface.

The probe's HiRISE camera revolutionized scientists' understanding of Mars' diverse surface features, with resolution high enough to picture objects as small as 3 feet (1 meter) wide. Since its arrival in orbit around Mars on March 10, 2006, MRO has snapped more than 100,000 images of the surface below and helped NASA track geologic activity like migrating dunes, impact craters, avalanches, dust storms and seasonal frost changes. And NASA is still finding ways to put the aging satellite's scientific instruments to good use. For example, the agency executed a 120-degree roll program last year designed to strengthen MRO's SHARAD radar signal by 10 times or more, allowing it to probe deeper than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) underground to detect water ice.

MRO's role as a communications relay for probes on and around Mars became even more important earlier this year, when NASA's MAVEN mission ended in June. Today, MRO returns around 80,000 megabits of data per day, according to Astronomy.com, and remains one of NASA's most critical assets in orbit around Mars.

Comet 220P/McNaught soaring over Namibia on August 8, 2026. (Image credit: Gerald Rhemann and Michael Jäger)

What a view. Astrophotographers in Namibia have captured a bright green comet soaring overhead in a spectacular new photograph.

What is it?

In this incredible new photograph is the comet 220P/McNaught.

Discovered by Australian astronomer Robert H. McNaught, the comet orbits our sun once every 5.5 years. Back in June, the comet reached perihelion, or the closest point in its orbit around the sun. Around that time, the comet experienced a large outburst, which brightened it about 8,000 times.

The comet brightened back up this August to about 600 times its normal brightness — and it was during this period when astrophotographers Gerald Rhemann and Michael Jäger captured it streaking across the night sky over Namibia.

To capture the moment, the pair used a 12-inch Astrograph telescope with a ZWO ASI 6200 MM Pro camera.

Why is it incredible?

It's not every day you see a comet in the night sky. Even if one is overhead, often they're too tricky or too far away to spot without a telescope, and even then it can be a challenge.

It's also incredible that the moment captured in the new image showcases the comet 220P/McNaught with such spectacular clarity and detail. It must have been something truly special to witness.

While spotting a comet like this might not happen every day, we can sometimes see the debris trailing behind a comet as its tail burns up in our atmosphere. These burnt comet bits are actually the "shooting stars" we see in the night sky during a meteor shower.

Right now, the Perseids meteor shower is on its annual parade across the night sky. This meteor shower is made up of debris shed by the comet Swift-Tuttle as it swoops by on its annual trip across the solar system. Under dark skies, skywatchers can see up to 100 shooting stars thanks to Swift-Tuttle.

The Perseid meteor shower, one of the most prolific and impressive meteor showers of the year, peaks tonight!

Widely regarded as one of the best meteor showers of the year, the Perseids can produce up to 100 meteors per hour under ideal viewing conditions and weather permitting.

This year's display is particularly favorable because the shower peaks on the night of the new moon, leaving skies free from bright moonlight that can wash out fainter meteors.

What time should I look?

The Perseids can produce meteors throughout the night, but the best viewing begins around 11 p.m. local time, with activity increasing after midnight and continuing until the predawn hours. Under dark, clear skies, patient observers could see dozens of meteors every hour with the highest rates expected just before dawn.

Where do they come from?

The annual show occurs as Earth passes through a trail of comet dust and rocky debris left behind by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Every year, our planet plows through this stream of cometary material, causing tiny fragments — many no larger than a grain of sand — to slam into Earth's atmosphere at around 133,000 mph (214,000 km/h).

As these particles compress and heat the air in front of them, they burn up high above Earth's surface, creating the brilliant streaks of light we know as meteors or shooting stars.

Every year, Earth passes through the path of Comet Swift-Tuttle. With the Perseid meteor shower's peak occurring when Earth passes through the densest, dustiest area. (Image credit: Future)How can I see the Perseids?

The Perseids appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, but you don't need to look directly at the constellation to enjoy the show. In fact, the longest and brightest meteors appear about 45 degrees away from the radiant, when you're not viewing them head-on.

To give yourself the best chance of seeing as many meteors as possible, head somewhere with dark skies, away from city lights and give your eyes around 30 minutes to adjust to the darkness. Avoid checking bright phone screens (easier said than done!) and leave the telescope or binoculars at home — meteors are best enjoyed with the naked eye.

The Perseid meteor shower will appear to radiate from the Perseus constellation. (Image credit: Future)

The highest number of meteors occurs in the predawn hours because it's when the side of Earth you're situated on has rotated into the stream of comet debris. You can think of it a bit like driving through rain — the windshield catches more raindrops than the rear window because it's facing the direction of travel. Likewise, before dawn, your location on Earth is facing into the stream of comet debris, meaning more meteoroids collide with Earth's atmosphere overhead.

A rare double sky showBest cameras for astrophotography

(Image credit: Nikon)

If you're looking for a good camera for meteor showers and astrophotography, our top pick is the Nikon D850.

Why have one remarkable sky event when you can have two? This year's Perseid peak arrives on the heels of today's total solar eclipse that crosses parts of Greenland, Iceland and Spain, making it possible to witness two of the year's most spectacular celestial events within just a few hours of each other.

If you're unable to catch the Perseids tonight, don't worry! While meteor numbers will gradually decline after the peak, the Perseids remain active through Aug. 24, meaning there are still opportunities to catch plenty of shooting stars under clear, dark skies.

If you're looking to snap photos of the meteor shower or the night sky in general, check out our guide on how to photograph meteor showers, as well as our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.

Just over 12 hours after its first liftoff of the day out of Florida's Space Coast, SpaceX has delivered a second batch of Starlink internet satellites to orbit on a rocket lifting off from the company's California launch site.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Aug. 12, at 12:46 p.m. EDT (0346 GMT; 9:46 p.m. local time). The mission, Starlink Group 17-49, carried 24 of the broadband spacecraft to low Earth orbit (LEO) to join SpaceX's growing constellation of more than 10,000 satellites.

About 8.5 minutes after clearing the tower, the Falcon 9's first stage, Booster 1103 successfully landed on SpaceX's "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship in the Pacific Ocean." It was the fifth flight for this particular booster.

The Falcon 9's first stage is seen just after its drone-ship landing on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)

In addition to being its third Starlnk mission, B1103 also launched the NROL-179 and SDA-T1TL-E in support of U.S. national defense.

Following separation from Falcon 9's main booster, the rocket's second stage flew onward to LEO, delivering its 24 Starlink satellites about one hour after liftoff.

Previous Booster B1103 launches

NROL-179 | SDA-T1TL-E | Starlink 17-42 | Starlink 17-35

Today's liftoff was the 94th Falcon 9 launch of the year, 73 of which have delivered Starlink stacks to the growing constellation — the largest satellite constellation ever assembled.

Starlink currently consists of more than 10,900 active satellites, according to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. But SpaceX has even bigger megaconstellations in mind: The company has filed to operate 100,000 of its bigger, more capable Starlink V3 satellites, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has also stated his intent to launch a million AI data center satellites to Earth orbit as well.

Today (Aug. 12), millions of people across Greenland, Iceland and Spain will witness a total solar eclipse as the moon completely covers the sun, turning day into night, albeit briefly.

It's Europe's first total solar eclipse since 1999, and with a maximum of 2 minutes, 18 seconds of totality, it will be worth the wait … weather permitting!

Even if you're not inside the path of totality, there's still plenty to see. A dramatic partial solar eclipse will be visible across much of Europe, offering millions more the chance to watch the moon take a 'bite' out of the sun. More than 90% of the sun will be covered for major cities such as London, Paris and Dublin.

Where will the eclipse be visible?

Today's eclipse will unfold over roughly 96 minutes as the moon's shadow races across Greenland, Iceland and Spain. Totality begins in Greenland in the late afternoon before reaching Spain in the evening, where skywatchers will witness the rare spectacle of a low-horizon sunset eclipse.

Not sure what you'll see from your location? Check out our where to see the total solar eclipse guide for visibility details.

Path of totalityCreated using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User CommunityPath of totalityCreated using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User CommunityPath of totalityCreated using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User CommunityPath of totalityCreated using MapHub.net. Source: Esri, Maxar, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User CommunityWhat time is the eclipse?

The eclipse occurs at different times depending on your location.

Location

Totality begins

Reykjavik, Iceland

5:48 p.m. GMT

Snæfellsjökull National Park, Iceland

5:45 p.m. GMT

Gijón, Spain

8:26 p.m. CEST

A Coruña, Spain

8:27 p.m. CEST

Mallorca, Spain

8:31 p.m. CEST

Looking for a more detailed breakdown of timings? Our what time is the eclipse guide can help.

Can I watch the eclipse online?

If you can't make it to a location within the path of totality, you can still experience the eclipse from home.

We've rounded up the best ways to watch the eclipse online, including livestreams from the path of totality.

Follow the eclipse with Space.com

Our eclipse live blog will bring you the latest updates throughout the day, including weather reports, photos, videos and observations from across Greenland, Iceland and Spain.

We'll also have reporters in the field. Skywatching Editor Daisy Dobrijevic is on an eclipse expedition to Greenland with HX, while Skywatching Writer Anthony Wood is observing from northern Spain with the DEB initiative and a team of citizen scientists.

Follow along throughout the day here on Space.com and our social channels (Instagram and TikTok) as we bring you firsthand reports from the path of totality and share some of the best eclipse images.

How to observe the eclipse

Appropriate eye protection is a must when viewing the sun. (Image credit: Arianne de San Jose van Hoof via Getty Images)

Never look directly at the sun without proper eye protection.

During the partial phases of the eclipse, you must use solar eclipse glasses or a certified solar filter. Looking at the sun without appropriate protection can cause serious and permanent eye damage.

The only time it is safe to view the eclipse without eye protection is during the brief period of totality, when the moon completely covers the sun. As soon as even a small portion of the sun reappears, eclipse glasses must be worn again.

For more information, check out our guide to observing the sun safely. If you haven't been able to get hold of some solar eclipse glasses, don't fear! We also have a handy guide on how to safely view the eclipse using items from around the home.

Editor's note: If you capture a photo of the solar eclipse and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.