Your guide to the solar eclipse 2024 – when is it happening?

The sky will go dark in the middle of the day when the total solar eclipse takes place across the US, Canada and Mexico on Monday

A rare total solar eclipse will occur across a strip of the United States on Monday, with millions hoping to catch a glimpse of the celestial phenomenon that is the continent’s first since 2017.
Here’s what you need to know:
On Monday April 8 2024 Mexico, the US and Canada will experience a total solar eclipse when the Moon will line up perfectly between the Earth and the Sun and block out the Sun for a total of 4 minutes and 28 seconds.
Nasa says it will enter the US at 2.27pm ET (6:27pm GMT) and leave around an hour later.
Often such events happen in remote parts of the world but this year it will pass over many heavily populated places. Once it hits the US from Mexico, it will pass through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. 
Tiny parts of Michigan and Tennessee will also be able to witness totality if conditions are clear. When the eclipse enters Canada it will pass over southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton, at the eastern end of Nova Scotia.
Estimates suggest 44 million people live within the path of totality, with another couple hundred million within 200 miles.
The eclipse has become a major tourist attraction, with large numbers of people flying to locations in the area of total eclipse. CBS News said as many as 4 million people were expected to fly to cities such as Dallas, adding up to $1bn into local economies as hotels and campsites get sold out.
Just a few moments before the eclipse, almost 300 couples from 22 states are set to wed in Russellville, Arkansas, which is in the area of totality. Among them are Carlotta Cox and Matthew Holloway of Knoxville, Tennessee.
“Being in the path of totality during a solar eclipse is just something,” Mr Cox told a local reporter. “There’s not an experience like it and for people that have not really experienced it, I recommend that they put it on their bucket list.”
There are watch parties hosted by everything from Brooklyn Botanic Garden (which should get around 90 per cent totality) to the Main Street Garden in Dallas, which should get 100 per cent totality.
The New York Adventure Club is selling a three-day train journey in 1950s First Class Pullman cars for $8,000 from New York City to Niagara Falls from April 7-9 “to witness an awe-inspiring total eclipse pass over New York State for the first time in over 60 years”. Inmates at New York state’s Woodbourne Correctional Facility will get to view the eclipse after lawyers sued the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision over not being allowed to see it.
“During a total eclipse, the sky darkens suddenly and dramatically. The temperature drops. Stars come out. Beautiful colours appear around the horizon,” said National Public Radio science journalist Nell Greenfieldboyce.
“And the once-familiar Sun becomes a black void in the sky surrounded by the glowing corona – that’s the ghostly white ring that is the Sun’s atmosphere.”
While it is not expected pets and farm and zoo animals will act too strangely, there are some potential exceptions; the New York Times says “cows may mosey into their barns for bedtime, flamingoes may huddle together in fear [and] the giant, slow-motion Galápagos tortoise may even get frisky and mate”. In truth, nobody is completely sure and experts will be watching what happens.
Experts say it is not safe to look at the Sun during a partial eclipse with the naked eye and people should use eclipse glasses that are thousands of times darker than normal sunglasses. During the few minutes of totality, when the Moon is fully blocking the Sun, it is safe to look.
During totality viewers may be able to see Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks a comet, along with Venus Saturn and Mars. It may be hard to see with the naked eye.
The last was August 21, 2017, August 21, 2017, but it only lasted about half the time of this one. The next total eclipse is to take place in Wed, Aug 12, 2026, but expected to hit just parts of Greenland, Iceland and Spain.