Rare solar eclipse will visit Tennessee in one year

The biggest and best solar eclipse in American history arrives a year from today, and plans for celebrations, parties and festivities are already well underway.

The total solar eclipse will reportedly occur on August 21, 2017. It will be the first total eclipse visible only in the US since the country was founded in 1776.

In this photo provided by Tourism Queensland, the moment of a total solar eclipse is observed at Cape Tribulation in Queensland state, Australia, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012. And not since 1970 has there been an opportunity to see a total solar eclipse in such easily accessible and widespread areas of the nation. Surrounding cities and areas will also be in the path of the eclipse (which you can check out on this NASA map). That’s when we’ll be able to see the moon take over 95% of the sun.

The eclipse will start on the West Coast, in OR, before traveling a 67 mile-wide path east and ending in SC. The eclipse will begin exactly at 15:45 UTC, whereas its maximum point will be visible from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, at 18:20, lasting for 2 minutes and 40 seconds. The last eclipse to traverse much of the United States came all the way back in 1918, on June 8.

The next total solar eclipse visible from North America will happen in 2024, with a path going from Texas to Midwest and the northeastern US. According to Sky and Telescope, the path ranges from OR through Nebraska, Kansas, Tennessee and North Carolina to SC.

Nashville, for example, has a festival prepared for what it’s calling the Music City Solar Eclipse, with a website that features a countdown clock (52 days away!).

Total eclipses are even less frequent.

“That path is only about 75 to 80 miles wide, and that represents where it will be totally blocked out”.

Many smaller towns across the eclipse’s path are also planning celebrations.

For many cultures a total solar eclipse represents a time when either a demon or animal consumes the Sun.