- Start
- Dec 26, 203875% CONFIDENCEfrom the source
Total Solar Eclipse Crosses Australia
- A total solar eclipse on 2038 Dec 26, catalogued by NASA/GSFC as sequence 09594, relative number -12, of Saros series 142[1][2][3]
- Greatest Eclipse falls at 00:58:46.5 UT at 40°16.5'S 163°56.9'E, with the Sun 73.0° up, a path 95.3 km wide and a central duration of 02m18.2s[1]
- Greatest Duration is 43 seconds earlier, at 00:58:03 UT at 40°15'S 163°37'E, with the same 95.3 km width and the same 02m18.2s duration, which the Google-map page also states[1][2]
- The umbral shadow is tabulated at 120-second intervals across 100 timed rows from 23:20 UT to 02:38 UT, the central line running from 11°53.5'S 095°18.7'E at the opening limits to 18°52.6'S 121°15.8'W at the closing limits[1]
- At the path’s ends totality is very short — 00m33.1s over a 40 km path at the start and 00m29.7s over 36 km at the end — against 02m18.2s at greatest eclipse[1]
- The Saros 142 catalog gives the same instant in Terrestrial Dynamical Time as 2038 Dec 26 01:00:10 TD with ΔT = 84 s, gamma -0.2881, magnitude 1.0268, path width 95 km and central duration 02m18s — rounded against the path page’s 95.3 km[1][3]
- Totality can only be seen between the blue northern and southern path limits and is longest on the red central line; yellow lines mark maximum eclipse at 10-minute intervals[2]
- Predictions use the VSOP87/ELP2000-85 solar and lunar ephemerides with ΔT = 83.0 seconds, and exclude the lunar limb profile, whose corrections ‘may shift the limits of the eclipse path north or south by ~1-3 kilometers, and change the eclipse duration by ~1-3 seconds’[1][2]
- Saros 142 runs 1280.14 years over 72 solar eclipses, 43 of them total and none annular, from a partial on 1624 Apr 17 to a partial on 2904 Jun 05; this eclipse follows 2020 Dec 14 (02m10s) and precedes 2057 Jan 05 (02m29s) as its durations lengthen[3]
- All calculations are by Fred Espenak, NASA’s GSFC, who ‘assumes full responsibility for their accuracy’[1][2][3]
References 382% CONFIDENCE
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
- [1]75%eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEpath/SEpath2001/SE2038Dec26Tpath.htmleclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov· Posted Sep 20, 2026· Starts Dec 26, 2038 ✓· 33% of score
NASA's[2][3] eclipse catalogue gives the instant of greatest eclipse as 00:58:46 UT on 2038-12-26 (01:00:10 TD, the two separated by delta-T), from Saros series 142. Eclipse circumstances are computed from orbital mechanics, so the date and time are exact centuries ahead.
- [2]90%Total Solar Eclipse of 2038-12-26 - Google map of the patheclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov· Added Sep 20, 2026· 33% of score
NASA's[1][3] interactive map of this eclipse, showing the central path, the points of greatest eclipse and greatest duration, and local circumstances anywhere on the map.
- [3]80%Saros series 142eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov· Added Sep 20, 2026· 33% of score
The saros series this eclipse belongs to, listing every eclipse in the same 18-year family and where each one fell.[1]
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