Why NASA Is Chasing the August 12 Eclipse at 460 MPH
During the total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026, a NASA WB-57 aircraft will fly at about 50,000 feet and roughly 460 miles per hour along the eclipse path. Chasing the Moon’s shadow will extend the aircraft’s view of the solar corona from a ground-based maximum of about 2 minutes 18 seconds to nearly 3 minutes. Student balloon teams will also measure how the sudden darkness changes the lower atmosphere.
The Moon’s shadow will race across Earth on August 12. NASA plans to chase it.
The 2026 total solar eclipse crosses parts of Russia, Greenland, Iceland, Spain and a small area of Portugal. A much larger region will see a partial eclipse. For the science teams involved, the event is not only a spectacular alignment. It is a short, moving laboratory for studying the Sun and Earth’s atmosphere.
Why an eclipse reveals something normally hidden
The Sun’s visible surface is so bright that it overwhelms the much fainter corona, the Sun’s outer atmosphere. During totality, the Moon covers the bright solar disk while the corona remains visible around it.
Specialized instruments can create artificial eclipses, but a natural total eclipse offers a detailed view close to the Sun’s edge. Scientists can study structures and outflows in the corona and collect observations that help investigate a famous solar mystery: how the corona reaches temperatures approaching one million degrees.
Why chase the shadow in a jet?
NASA’s WB-57 will carry four cameras designed to record visible and infrared light from the corona. The cameras are expected to capture at least 20 images per second.
Flying at roughly 460 miles per hour along the eclipse path lets the aircraft remain inside the Moon’s moving shadow longer than a stationary observer. NASA says the longest ground view of the corona during this eclipse is about 2 minutes 18 seconds. The flight should extend the observing time to nearly 3 minutes.
The 50,000-foot altitude provides two other advantages. It puts the cameras above clouds that might block the view from the ground, and it reduces the amount of lower atmosphere that can absorb certain infrared wavelengths before they reach the instruments.
The atmosphere becomes an experiment too
An eclipse briefly interrupts the normal day-night cycle. Sunlight and surface heating fall quickly, creating an opportunity to watch the lower atmosphere respond on a compressed timescale.
In Iceland, student teams supported by NASA’s Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project plan to launch 80 balloons from 18 hours before the eclipse until eight hours afterward. Their target is the atmospheric boundary layer, the portion of the atmosphere directly influenced by the surface below it.
Previous balloon flights during the 2023 and 2024 eclipses found that the boundary layer became thinner at clear-sky sites but not at cloudy ones. The Iceland campaign will test how that response behaves under different seasonal conditions and unusually long summer daylight.
In Spain, three teams plan to launch six balloons carrying 360-degree cameras and ozone instruments. Earlier measurements found a decrease in ozone during the April 2024 total eclipse. The new observations will test whether the response differs with location, season and time of day. That is a research question, not a predicted result.
Where the eclipse will be visible
NASA’s eclipse map and visibility guidance list totality in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and a small part of Portugal. Partial phases extend across a much wider area, including parts of North America, Europe and Africa.
Your exact view depends on location. Check an authoritative local eclipse map rather than assuming that a regional visibility description applies to your city.
How to watch without damaging your eyes
During every partial phase, direct viewing requires special-purpose solar filters that conform to the ISO 12312-2 international standard. Ordinary sunglasses are not safe, regardless of how dark they appear.
The only time viewers may look without a solar filter is during the brief period of totality, when the Sun’s bright visible surface is completely covered—and only from within the path of totality. Anyone seeing a partial eclipse must use protection for the entire event.
The American Astronomical Society’s safety guidance also warns never to look through an unfiltered camera, telescope or binoculars. Concentrated sunlight can cause severe eye injury and can damage equipment. Solar filters for optical devices belong securely on the front of the instrument; eclipse glasses are not a substitute.
A three-minute experiment years in the making
The eclipse is brief, but the science is not improvised. Cameras, flight plans, balloon launches and comparison measurements have been prepared to extract as much information as possible from a shadow that never stops moving.
For most of us, an eclipse is a moment to look up—safely. For the teams chasing it, those minutes are a chance to look more closely at two enormous systems we still do not completely understand: the Sun above us and the atmosphere around us.