Total on April 8, 2024 solar eclipse The 115-mile-wide (185-kilometer), 10,000-mile-long (16,000-km) continent cut a suddenly dark path, casting its enormous shadow over North America.
Starting in Mexico, the eclipse moved through 15 US states before passing across Canada, and was watched by 44 million people. If you didn't get to witness the stunning spectacle in person, here are all our favorite pictures from eclipse viewing parties across America.
Related: No, you didn't see sunlight during a total eclipse—but you might have seen something special
The first totality began in Mazatlán, Mexico, where observers saw the Moon in front of the Sun's disk. Just before totality, viewers are treated to a thin diamond ring of sunlight shining through valleys on the moon's outer surface.
After the Moon completely blocks the face of the Sun, only faint purple particles are visible in the corona caused by solar flares.
Meanwhile, above Fort Worth, Texas, the moon began to carve the sun into a toenail-thin slice.
Then, just before totality, the diamond ring effect was observed. As the last beads of sunlight zipped through the canyons at the Moon's limbs, the two bodies appeared in the sky as a brilliant diamond-encrusted ring.
Later, in space, the European Space Agency's Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite imaged the moon's shadow across North America.
The eclipse passed over Cleveland, Ohio where the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians were about to face off. Baseball fans and players flocked to the field to take photos of the eclipse; This image shows a combination of the partial and total phases of the eclipse as viewed from the progressive field.
All in all, the sun's corona shone in the dark sky above the stadium lights at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio.
As the eclipse passed over Dallas, Texas, a NASA photographer caught the entire progression on camera. This composite image shows both partial phases of the eclipse on the left and right, with the corona visible during totality in the center.
People with binoculars and telephoto cameras can see solar prominences (massive eddies of plasma that tower over the Sun's surface) in bulk. Each prominence is several times higher than Earth.
Partial phases of the eclipse are visible over the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, as this composite NASA image shows.
The sun's final rays peeked over the mountains of the moon seconds before totality in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Clouds obscured much of the total phase of the eclipse at Niagara Falls, where millions of people flocked to both the US and Canadian sides of the river to witness the spectacle. When the corona is eclipsed in this image, the horizon lights up with a 360-degree sunset effect.
Not far away in Hamilton, Ontario, eclipse chasers flocked to the shores of Lake Ontario. Here, as seen through a pair of orange solar eclipse glasses, the partial eclipse begins above a haze of clouds.
The sun's corona shines across the dark sky across Clover, Vermont.
No less spectacular was Mizar, a dog who awaited a total solar eclipse at the Sacre Coeur de Beauvoir sanctuary in Sherbrooke, Canada.
The eclipse bathed the sky above Dorian, Mexico in light.
The moon sets over the sun for this moody photo taken through cloud cover in Brady, Texas.
This photo from Eagle Pass, Texas has only a thin hair of sunlight
Under a blanket of clouds, the moon pockets the sun beneath the angel at the Princes' Gates in Toronto.
A partial solar eclipse was seen through cloud cover over Niagara Falls, New York.
The Moon passes in front of the Sun behind the Washington Monument during a partial solar eclipse in Washington DC.
A partial solar eclipse dazzles the dome of the US Capitol building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, with cloud cover.
The sun reaches totality in Holden, Maine, before crossing New Brunswick, then Newfoundland, and the Atlantic Ocean.
