Dust off your eclipse glasses: It’s only a year until a total solar eclipse sweeps across North America.
On April 8, 2024, the moon will cast its shadow across a stretch of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, plunging millions of people into midday darkness.
It’s been less than six years since a total solar eclipse cut across the U.S., from coast to coast. That was on Aug. 21, 2017.
If you miss next year’s spectacle, you’ll have to wait 20 years until the next one hits the U.S. But that total eclipse will only be visible in Montana and the Dakotas.
Here’s what to know to get ready for the 2024 show:
WHERE CAN I SEE IT?
Next year’s eclipse will slice a diagonal line across North America on April 8, which falls on a Monday.
It will start in the Pacific and first reach land over Mexico around 11:07 a.m. local time, NASA predicts. Then, it’ll cross over into Texas and move across parts of the Midwest and Northeast in the afternoon.
All in all, it will hit parts of 13 U.S. states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Cities in its path include Dallas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Indianapolis; Cleveland and Buffalo, New York.
Parts of Canada — including Quebec and Newfoundland — will also get a glimpse before the eclipse heads out to sea in the early evening.
A total eclipse will be visible within a 115-mile wide swath — the path of totality. Outside that path, you can still see a partial solar eclipse, where the moon takes a bite out of the sun and turns it into a crescent shape.
Total eclipses happen about every 18 months, but a lot of times they cross over remote areas where few people see them.