Total solar eclipse of December 15, 2039
Thursday, December 15, 2039
The Moon covers the Sun completely along a path about 380 km wide, most of it over Antarctica, in the midnight sun of the southern summer. It starts at sunrise over the Southern Ocean north of the Ross Sea, crosses the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, where totality is longest, 1 min 51 s, then the high plateau of East Antarctica, its edge about 510 km from the South Pole, with China's Kunlun Station at Dome A just inside it. It leaves the continent on the coast of Prydz Bay, where Davis Station and the stations of the Larsemann Hills see about a minute and a half of totality, at 11:53 PM by Davis's clock, with the Sun about 4° up in the south-southwest, and ends at sunset over the Southern Ocean to the north. McMurdo Station and Scott Base lie about 110 km outside the path, with 99% of the Sun covered; there, and at the South Pole station, which keep New Zealand time, it is early on Friday, December 16. Beyond Antarctica a small part of the Sun is covered: in the far south of South America, 10% in Ushuaia, and on the Falklands and South Georgia; on South Africa's Cape coast just before sunset, about 7% in Cape Town as the Sun goes down; and in the early morning on the Chatham Islands, where it is already under way at sunrise, and on Pitcairn and the Gambier Islands, about 7% there.
- Greatest eclipse16:22 UTC over the Ross Ice Shelf, near 80.9° S, 172.8° E
- Longest totality1 min 51 s over the Ross Ice Shelf; about a minute and a half at Davis Station and in the Larsemann Hills
- Partial eclipseAntarctica, the Southern Ocean, the far south of South America, the Falklands and South Georgia, South Africa's Cape coast at sunset, the Chatham Islands, Pitcairn, and the Gambier and Austral Islands
The eclipse from your place
Example: Davis Station on Prydz Bay, where totality comes near midnight. Choose your own place.
Total at Davis Station: about 1 min 30 s of totality
Totality from 11:53 PM to 11:55 PM local time.
The partial eclipse begins at 11:05 PM and ends at 12:42 AM; the Sun stands 4° above the horizon.
Your location stays in your browser; the times are worked out on this page.
The path of totality
Swipe the map to follow the path to Prydz Bay.
Times along the path
In the order totality arrives, by Davis's own clock (UTC+7) there and in UTC at the stations the time-zone database gives no time of their own. The shadow crosses the continent from the Ross Ice Shelf to Prydz Bay in about 40 minutes.
| Station | Totality | How long | Sun height |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kunlun StationDome A | 4:45 PM UTC to 4:46 PM UTC | under a minute | 15° |
| Taishan StationPrincess Elizabeth Land | 4:50 PM UTC to 4:52 PM UTC | about 1 min 30 s | 9° |
| Davis StationPrydz Bay | 11:53 PM to 11:55 PM | about 1 min 30 s | 4° |
| Law-Racoviță-Negoiță StationLarsemann Hills | 4:54 PM UTC to 4:55 PM UTC | about 1 min 30 s | 5° |
| Progress StationLarsemann Hills | 4:54 PM UTC to 4:55 PM UTC | about 1 min 30 s | 5° |
| Zhongshan StationLarsemann Hills | 4:54 PM UTC to 4:55 PM UTC | about 1 min 30 s | 5° |
| Bharati StationLarsemann Hills | 4:54 PM UTC to 4:55 PM UTC | about 1 min 20 s | 5° |
Near the path: a partial eclipse
| Place | Sun covered | Greatest at | Begins and ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| McMurdo StationRoss Island · path about 110 km south-east | 99% | 5:19 AM | 4:28 AM to 6:12 AM |
| Scott BaseRoss Island · path about 110 km south-east | 99% | 5:19 AM | 4:28 AM to 6:12 AM |
| Amundsen–Scott South Pole StationSouth Pole | 94% | 5:36 AM | 4:41 AM to 6:31 AM |
| Vostok StationEast Antarctic plateau · path about 230 km south-west | 98% | 9:38 PM | 8:47 PM to 10:29 PM |
| Concordia StationDome C | 94% | 4:31 PM UTC | 3:42 PM UTC to 5:21 PM UTC |
| Mawson StationMac. Robertson Land · path about 450 km east | 95% | 10:02 PM | 9:12 PM to 10:51 PM |
| Casey StationWilkes Land | 93% | 12:37 AM | 11:50 PM to 1:23 AM |
| Dumont d'Urville StationAdélie Land | 91% | 2:19 AM | 1:32 AM to 3:07 AM |
| UshuaiaTierra del Fuego, Argentina | 10% | 1:28 PM | 12:44 PM to 2:12 PM |
| Punta ArenasChile | 7% | 1:22 PM | 12:42 PM to 2:03 PM |
Watching it safely
- Look at the Sun only through eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer made to the ISO 12312-2 standard. Ordinary sunglasses, however dark, are not safe.
- Inside the path, take the glasses off only once the Moon hides the Sun's bright face completely, and put them back on as soon as any bright Sun reappears.
- Outside the path the Sun is never fully covered, so the glasses stay on the whole time, even at 99%, as at McMurdo Station and Scott Base.
- Never look through a camera, binoculars or a telescope without a solar filter fitted over the front, even while wearing eclipse glasses.
- Without glasses, watch it indirectly: a pinhole in a card projects the crescent Sun onto the snow with the Sun behind you.
This follows NASA's eclipse safety guidance. On Prydz Bay totality comes with the Sun low, about 4° up at Davis Station and 5° in the Larsemann Hills, in the south-southwest, so choose a spot with a clear, low view that way, away from hills and buildings. Inland the Sun stands higher, about 9° at Taishan Station and 15° at Kunlun.
How these times are worked out
The path, its width and the greatest eclipse come from NASA's predictions by Fred Espenak (GSFC). NASA's table gives the edges every two minutes, and over Antarctica, where the shadow moves fast, that leaves some 150 to 250 km between its points; between them, and at the path's two ends, the edges are traced with Astronomy Engine, the same computation that gives each station its times. That computation treats the Sun and Moon as smooth spheres. NASA notes that the Moon's mountains and valleys shift the edges of the path by 1 to 3 km and change the duration by 1 to 3 seconds, so durations here are rounded down to 10 seconds. Kunlun Station lies about 12 km inside the traced edge, so its totality may be shorter than shown; go east, towards the red line, for longer.
Station clocks: Davis, Mawson, Casey, Vostok and Dumont d'Urville keep the times the time-zone database gives them, and McMurdo, Scott Base and the South Pole station keep New Zealand time, on which the eclipse falls on December 16. The database gives no time for Zhongshan, Progress, Bharati, Law-Racoviță-Negoiță, Taishan, Kunlun or Concordia, so their times here are in UTC; a station can also change its clock, so check its own time before the day.
The eclipse before this one, the annular eclipse of June 21, 2039, crosses Alaska, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Baltic: its path and times. The next one, the total eclipse of April 30, 2041, crosses Luanda, the DR Congo, Kampala and Kenya: its path and times. For every other eclipse, solar and lunar, see when the next eclipse is.