Aug. 12 (UPI) — Some 15.2 million people across the world — mostly Europe — live in the path of totality of Wednesday’s solar eclipse.
It marked the first total solar eclipse viewable from Europe since 1999, Space.com reported.
A solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, casting a shadow on Earth as it blocks the sun’s rays. In some areas, the phenomenon will be what’s known as a total solar eclipse, in which all but the very outer edges of the sun will be blocked by the moon.
About 12% of the world’s population, or 980 million people, live in areas where they were be able to view the solar eclipse. A much smaller portion, about. 0.2% or 15.2 million people, live in the path of totality.
The vast majority of the world was able to view the eclipse, though, so NASA set up a live stream of the view from multiple cameras in the path of the event.
The eclipse, which got underway around 11:30 a.m. EDT, was expected to be viewable across a chunk of the Northern Hemisphere, including most of western Europe, the very northern reaches of Russia, northwestern Africa, all of Greenland, Iceland and Canada, and the northeastern United States. The path of totality is expected to stretch in an arc from northern Russia, across the North Pole, down the east coast of Greenland and through Iceland, before passing across northern Spain and ending in the Mediterranean Sea.
