The Moon is first expected to blot out the Sun from 1700 GMT in Russia's remote Arctic north, leaving only the shimmering glow of its outer corona, before parts of Greenland and Iceland are enveloped in the arc of its eerie shadow.Excitement was highest in Spain, where tourists thronged the streets of normally quiet villages to experience the dramatic natural phenomenon as the eclipse's narrow path cuts across the Iberian Peninsula from the northern Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean Sea in the south.
Supplies of special viewing glasses are in high demand © Henry NICHOLLS / AFP
Mainland Europe has not experienced a total solar eclipse for 20 years while Spain has not witnessed one in more than a century.Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, however, has not seen a total solar eclipse since 1433."It's the first time and it's the last time, the only time I'm going to see an eclipse," Yenny Guevera, a 50-year-old Peruvian living in France, told AFP excitedly in Burgos, northwest Spain."I like painting and I really like light," said Mercedes Bua, a 51-year-old engineer awaiting the eclipse's passage in a park in Colmenar Viejo, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of Madrid."So I find it interesting to see how it's going to look."Supplies of special viewing glasses were in high demand as a partial eclipse will be visible for millions more in most of Europe, Canada, the northern United States and northwest Africa.FleetingThroughout human history, eclipses have stirred amazement, fear and reverence, as they appear to momentarily halt the normal course of nature.The shadow or "umbra" cast by the alignment of Sun and Moon creates a strange twilight during which temperatures drop, shadows appear at strange angles and some animals go to sleep.But the phenomenon is fleeting: in parts of Russia and Greenland, the total eclipse will last under two-and-a-half minutes.
