For the people of southern Spain and much of North Africa, 2026 will feature a long period of darkness.
Not that this is bad news. On Monday, August 2 one of the longest total solar eclipses in history will appear, lasting longer than six minutes. Expected to be first seen over Cadiz, Spain, the darkness will then spread across parts of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, including over Makkah, and ending in Yemen.
The longest period of darkness will be in southern Egypt, where the Sun will be blocked out for six minutes, 23.2 seconds. This will not be the longest total eclipse of the century, which took place on July 22, 2009 over the Pacific Ocean and less populated lands.
But it is a record that will not be matched until July 16, 2186, with a total eclipse lasting seven minutes and 29.22 seconds, the longest in 10,000 years.
Further out in space, the Voyager 1 probe is set to reach another major milestone. The probe, launched on September 5, 1971, left the solar system in 2012 and in November 2026 is expected to be one light day from Earth.
That means light from the probe would take exactly a day to reach Earth, travelling at 299,792,458 metres per second. By way of reference, the nearest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, at 4.2 light years or 1,533 light days away.
Fly me to the Moon
The crew of Artemis II, Nasa's Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen are set to fly to the Moon in 2026. Reuters
Still in space, but a little closer to home, attempts to return humans to the Moon should take a major step forward as early as February, with the launch of Nasa’s Artemis 2 mission.
Four astronauts will orbit the Moon for the first time since 1972 in a voyage intended as a prelude to a crewed lunar landing as early as 2027.
With the International Space Station due to be taken out of orbit in 2031, plans are already being made for a new research platform in space.
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