Overview
- The eclipse is set for Wednesday, 12 August 2026, with the Moon’s shadow crossing Greenland, Iceland, the North Atlantic and finishing over much of Spain where totality will occur near sunset.
- Spanish authorities have published special DGT traffic rules in the BOE and regional governments have activated large security, health and environmental deployments to manage mass travel to official observation points.
- Local plans include wide distribution of ISO 12312‑2 certified viewing glasses—Catalonia will hand out about 150,000 units and Madrid about 50,000 with additional supplies via ONCE—and the designation of dozens of official miradors.
- NASA and European teams will carry out coordinated observations, including a NASA WB‑57 research aircraft and student balloon projects, to study rapid atmospheric changes and photograph the solar corona during the short totality.
- Totality will be very brief in most places—generally under two and a half minutes with a maximum near 2 minutes 18 seconds—and officials stress never to look at the Sun without certified filters and to avoid distracted driving and unsafe access to forest tracks.