Tomorrow February 17, 2026 one of the most evocative astronomical shows will take place in the Antarctic sky: asolar eclipseespecially a so-called “ring of fire”that is, aannular eclipsein which the Moon is aligned between the Sun and Earth but is too far from us to completely cover the solar disk, thus leaving the edge of our star visible. The phenomenon will only be visible in a completely uninhabited band above the central-eastern Antarctic continent, where, however, the European research station is present Concord and the Russian station Mirny, which are inhabited at this time of year. However, apartial eclipse in the’Southern Africa (South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar) and in the extreme southern tip of Patagonia.
When will the annular eclipse arrive and how long does it last
The partial eclipse will begin in South America at 10:56 Italians, while in the band in which the eclipse will be annular the phenomenon will begin at 12.42pmin central Antarctica. The maximum is expected for 1.12pm (Italian time). Annularity – that is, the condition of annular eclipse with only the edge of the Sun visible – will last throughout 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
The show will then move progressively to Antarctica from south to north, where it will arrive at 2.42pm Italians on the Indian Ocean coast. The last to see the astronomical phenomenon, in the form of a partial eclipse, will be the inhabitants of Madagascar, until 3.27pm Italian.
Because the one in Antarctica will be an annular eclipse
Usually, during solar eclipses the Moon appears large enough in the sky to entirely cover the Sun’s disk. However, this does not always happen: even when the alignment between the three celestial bodies is perfect, as in the case of tomorrow’s eclipse, the relative sizes of the Sun and Moon may vary slightly due to the different distances of the Sun and Moon from the Earth.
In this case, the Earth is located relatively close to the perihelioni.e. the point of the Earth’s orbit plus Neighbor to the Sun, which our planet reached on January 3. This means that the Sun appears to us – albeit very slightly – more big than usual. On the other hand, the Moon is relatively close toapogeei.e. the point of the lunar orbit plus distant from Earth, which our natural satellite reached on February 10th. As a result, the apparent size of the Moon is slightly larger small than usual. The combination of “Sun a little bigger” And “Moon a little smaller” means that the lunar disk will not be able to completely cover the solar one, thus generating the so-called phenomenon “ring of fire”.
The wait for the total eclipse on August 12th
As is often the case, solar and lunar eclipses come in pairs, one 14 days apart from the other. This case is no exception: two weeks after the dimming of the Sun in Antarctica, the March 2-3 there will be atotal lunar eclipse visible in northeastern Asia and western North America. Here in Italy we will not be able to see the show, which however we were able to witness not long ago, on 7 September 2025.
However, the date to mark on the calendar is that of August 12, 2026when for the first time since 11 August 1999 a total solar eclipse will be visible from Europe. In Italy the solar eclipse will be partial (the Moon will only partially cover the solar disk), while to witness totality we would have to move to Spain.
