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Solar eclipses are perhaps the most dazzling celestial phenomena that you can see clearly from Earth. A solar eclipse occurs when the Earth, moon and sun are aligned in the same plane, and the moon passes between the Earth and the sun. During a total solar eclipse, the moon completely covers the sun, resulting in several minutes of "totality," or evening-like darkness in the daytime, as the center of the moon's dark shadow falls over Earth. During a partial solar eclipse, the moon only blocks a portion of the sun's disk, and viewers do not experience totality.  Please note: Totality is the ONLY time when it is safe to look directly at the sun without wearing protective eyewear, such as official solar eclipse glasses. "During this period when any of the disk is visible, one must use protective equipment to view the sun," William Teets, director of the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, told Live Science...

When the moon's central shadow races at more than 1,500 mph (2,400 km/h) across North America on April 8 to cause a total solar eclipse , the resulting spectacle will be both unique and part of a progressing cycle. This path of totality (the path of the moon's dark shadow across the face of the Earth) will be narrow, at just 115 miles (185 kilometers) wide, and it will cross parts of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada in a never-to-be-repeated route across the continent, lasting just100 minutes. Only from within that path will viewers experience darkness during the daytime, dropping temperatures and nocturnal animal behavior — and only from within that path will it be possible to look at the totally eclipsed sun's beautiful corona with the naked eye. (Note: DO NOT look directly at the sun at any time other than totality without wearing a pair of certified solar eclipse glasses . ) For most of the 40 million people living in the path of totality, it will be a once-in-a-life...