With all the talk surrounding the April 8 Solar Eclipse, you may be asking yourself: what’s the big deal?
The eclipse has generated a frenzy of excitement around the U.S., and multiple states are anticipating large swaths of visitors traveling to their cities. Some state Departments of Transportation are preparing for floods of cars and traffic jams.
The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that millions of people are expected to travel to states that will see a total eclipse.
The upcoming eclipse is the first total eclipse visible from the contiguous U.S. since 2017, and another won’t happen like this until August 2044, according to NASA.
This eclipse is an even bigger deal than the one in 2017, NASA says, due to its wider path of totality which includes more major cities and densely populated areas and will last for almost double the duration.
A solar eclipse is when the moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and blocks the Sun’s light. It casts a shadow and leaves a trail as the Earth rotates, which NASA calls the path of totality. In this path of totality, the moon completely blocks light from the sun, which results in a few brief minutes of darkness where the sun’s outer atmosphere known as the corona creates a glowing halo around the moon.
“It gets so dark that it looks like night time during a full Moon,” according to NASA’s website.
The entire DMV falls outside of the path of totality and will only see a partial eclipse, but anyone wanting to see the full eclipse can travel a short distance to states including Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. A full list of cities that fall within the path of totality have been posted on Eclipse2024.org.
