In this episode •
Shadow Day: the only total solar eclipse of 2026 crosses Arctic Russia, Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain today — the first total eclipse over western mainland Europe since 1999 (Spain’s first since 1905, Iceland’s since 1954). Max totality ~2 min 18 s. Reykjavík ~17:48 UT; northern Spain ~18:27–18:33 UT (Sun very low, ~4–10° up). Live via NASA, timeanddate and the Exploratorium. •
Where you are: North America gets an afternoon partial (Nova Scotia ~33%, N. Maine ~28%, Montreal ~18%, Boston ~16%, NYC ~9–10%, Toronto ~8%, DC ~10%; Fairbanks ~37% in the morning) — no totality anywhere on the continent, glasses on throughout. Europe outside the path sees a deep evening partial (London ~91%). Australia/SH: not visible directly — watch the streams (~1:30–6:00 am AEST Thu). •
Chasing the shadow: NASA’s WB-57 jet flies the path at ~50,000 ft (~740 km/h), extending totality to nearly 3 minutes with four visible/IR cameras (SCIFI) to probe coronal heating, prominences and the solar wind (PI Amir Caspi, SwRI). The Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (A. Des Jardins, Montana State) launches ~86 balloons from Iceland and Spain to measure atmospheric changes. •
A star-building magnetic field: ALMA captures the first direct high-resolution image of a twisted, toroidal magnetic field wrapped around a protostellar jet in NGC 1333 IRAS 4A (~960 ly, Perseus cloud), confirming a decades-old prediction of how young stars launch jets and shed spin — the same physics that scales up to black-hole jets (Ching et al., Nature Communications 2026; NSF NRAO/ALMA). •
Why worlds turn hellish: UC Riverside’s Stephen Kane argues planetary rotation is an overlooked driver of climate and habitability — slow spin may help tip a world into a Venus-style runaway greenhouse. Measuring true spin is hard because winds can masquerade as rotation; ESA’s PLATO (launch March 2027) could test the idea across hundreds of Venus-like planets (Astronomical Journal, accepted). •
Skywatch — both hemispheres: the Perseids peak overnight 12–13 Aug under a genuinely moonless sky (best midnight–dawn; NH-favoured). Southern Hemisphere: evening Venus (mag −4.4, just past dichotomy), the pre-dawn planet line-up, and Comet 10P/Tempel 2. ISO 12312-2 eye-safety line included.
Sources • NASA Science — Total Solar Eclipse on August 12, 2026; “NASA Science Soars During August Total Solar Eclipse” • timeanddate; Eclipsophile; NationalEclipse.com; azmth.space — path, contact times, magnitudes • Astronomy.com; Forbes; CBS News — North American partial times & percentages • Space.com; Smithsonian — WB-57 SCIFI campaign & Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project • NSF NRAO / phys.org — Ching et al., “Unveiling dominant toroidal magnetic fields in a protostellar outflow,” Nature Communications (2026) • UC Riverside (news.ucr.edu) / phys.org — S. Kane, planetary rotation & runaway greenhouse (Astronomical Journal, accepted) • EarthSky; Astronomy.com — Perseid peak (moonless), Venus dichotomy
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