Solar eclipse 2024: When is the solar eclipse going to happen?

The sun is about to pull another disappearing act across North America, turning day into night during a total solar eclipse on April 8.

The peak spectacle will last up to 4 minutes, 28 seconds in the path of total darkness, twice as long as the total solar eclipse that dimmed U.S. skies in 2017.

The moon will line up perfectly between the Earth and the sun, blotting out the sunlight. It will take less than 2½ hours for the moon’s shadow to slice a diagonal line from the southwest to the northeast across North America, briefly plunging communities along the track into darkness.

Erie will be in the path of totality for nearly four minutes. The Pittsburgh region will see the moon cover approximately 97% of the sun, with maximum totality 3:17 p.m., according to the Carnegie Science Center. Sunlight will dim for a few minutes here, but the sky will not go dark.

An estimated 44 million people live inside the 115-mile-wide path of totality stretching from Mexico to Newfoundland; about 32 million of them are in the U.S., guaranteeing jammed roads for the must-see celestial sensation.

This eclipse will enter over Mexico’s Pacific coast, dash up through Texas and Oklahoma, and crisscross the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England before exiting over eastern Canada into the Atlantic. The eclipse will allow many to share in the “wonder of the universe without going very far,” said NASA’s eclipse program manager Kelly Korreck.

There won’t be another U.S. eclipse, spanning coast to coast, until 2045. That one will stretch from Northern California all the way to Cape Canaveral, Fla.

— Staff and wire reports

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• Where will you be for the April 8 total solar eclipse? There's still time to grab a spot
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