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CHICAGO — With just hours to go until Monday afternoon’s solar eclipse, thousands of people are expected to flock to Adler Planetarium at the tip of Northerly Island on Chicago’s Museum Campus.
It’ll be a while before anyone sees this again.
Monday’s solar eclipse is the second one to be seen in Illinois in seven years, but the next big one won’t happen for two decades. And the next one that will be visible in Chicago won’t be until 2099.
Adler Planetarium officials are expecting a crowd of 10,000 or more later Monday for a solar eclipse viewing party.
Wherever you’re planning to gaze into the sky, experts are encouraging everyone to view the eclipse with special solar-filtered glasses that block out 99.99% of the sun’s intensity.
Michelle Nichols, an Adler Planetarium astronomer, explains precisely what people will be looking at when they view Monday’s solar eclipse.
“When the moon gets in between the earth and the sun, the moon has its shadow cast by the sun,” Nichols said. “And that shadow, if it falls across the earth, you get to see a solar eclipse.”
You have to be ready, though, because the full effect of the solar eclipse will only last for a few minutes.
In Chicagoland, we’ll see about 94% of the sun covered at the peak of the eclipse. In totality, the eclipse is expected to range from about 12:51 to 3:22 p.m., with the maximum eclipse at 2:07.
Visit WGN’s Eclipse 2024 page for full coverage of Monday’s solar eclipse.
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