Mark your calendars for August 12, 2026, when the Sun, Moon, and Earth decide to do their whole alignment thing again. The last time they pulled this off, on April 8, 2024, the path of totality conveniently stretched across North America, treating millions to a peek at the Sun's corona. This year, the celestial real estate is a bit more exclusive: only a few land spots in the Northern Hemisphere, including parts of Iceland and Spain, are in the path of totality. So, if you were banking on a repeat of the 2024 spectacle from your backyard, you're out of luck - unless your backyard is in Iceland or Spain.

On August 12, the Moon's shadow will first cross the Arctic Circle from northern Russia, then track along eastern Greenland. At about 5:45 p.m. local time in Iceland (17:45 Universal Time), the western fringes - including the Snæfellsnes peninsula, as seen in the Landsat image above - will start experiencing totality. The greatest eclipse will occur near this sparsely populated peninsula when the Moon appears largest and covers more of the Sun. Because nothing says 'greatest eclipse' like a remote, windswept peninsula with questionable weather.

Now, the Snæfellsnes peninsula isn't just any old rock. It's home to the Snæfellsjökull volcano, which is ice-covered and last erupted about 1,800 years ago. It's the star of a national park of the same name, and folks are expected to flock there for the eclipse. The stratovolcano even has literary cred: in Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth, characters descend into its crater and later pop out in Stromboli, Italy. In 2025, the area was declared a UNESCO biosphere reserve, boasting over 70 percent of Iceland's flora and a delightful mix of volcanic landscapes, wetlands, and grasslands. So, if the eclipse doesn't wow you, the moss might.

From Iceland, the umbra (that's the fancy term for the shadow) will trek across the North Atlantic and reach northern Spain just before sunset. It'll run east-southeast across the country, following a path reminiscent of the Ebro River (Río Ebro), also captured in a Landsat image. The upper Ebro starts in the rugged terrain of Parque Natural de Montes Obarenes-San Zadornil, carving canyons through the Cantabrian Mountains' foothills, then meanders through La Rioja, famous for its vineyards. About 400 kilometers (250 miles) later, it hits the Mediterranean coast between Barcelona and Valencia. Nothing says 'eclipse viewing' like a river delta, right?

Based on satellite measurements of August cloud cover over several decades, Spain offers better odds than Iceland for a clear view. So, while Iceland gets the dramatic volcanic backdrop, Spain gets the clearer skies - a classic trade-off. And for those not in the path of totality, don't despair: the rest of Europe, parts of Africa, Canada, and the northern and northeastern U.S. will experience a partial eclipse. Because sometimes, a little bit of totality is better than none at all.

NASA Earth Observatory images and map by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey, base imagery from Blue Marble: Next Generation and Black Marble, and eclipse path data from Xavier Jubier. Story by Lindsey Doermann.