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CNN Live Event/Special
Rare Total Solar Eclipse Sweeping Through Parts of Europe. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired August 12, 2026 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right, we are looking at live pictures coming to us from Arcos de las Salinas in Spain. Spain is really getting the amazing view in this amazing total eclipse.
Let's go back now to Dr. Adam Burgasser, who is a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at U.C. San Diego. But now, he is aboard a Holland America cruise ship off the coast of Mallorca. And you have a lot of folks there, Dr. Burgasser, tell us what they're saying to you.
DR. BRIANNA KEILAR, PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS, U.C. SAN DIEGO: Yes, we have a whole platform of folks who are out here waiting for the eclipse to happen. I am actually here right now with one of the passengers, Alexandra, who is a middle school teacher from Sebastopol, California, and -- is this your first solar eclipse?
ALEXANDRA GENETTI, MIDDLE SCHOOL ASTRONOMY TEACHER FROM SEBASTOPOL, CALIFORNIA: It is not.
BURGASSER: OK, so you're an expert. How many eclipses have you seen so far?
GENETTI: I think I'm five for six.
BURGASSER: Five for six?
GENETTI: Right.
BURGASSER: Five successful and?
GENETTI: Yeah, one cloud.
BURGASSER: OK.
GENETTI: It's the first one, which really set us off, and now we have to see them. Yeah.
BURGASSER: OK, well, this is great. I'm glad you're here and what are you excited about for this eclipse on move (ph)?
GENETTI: Everything.
BURGASSER: Everything? GENETTI: Well, I've never seen the sunset eclipse, so that's really cool.
BURGASSER: Yeah.
GENETTI: And, you know, it's just the most phenomenal thing you can see. It's the biggest thing you could see because these things are -- the sun and moon are far away and it's miraculous that this even happens.
BURGASSER: Yeah.
GENETTI: It's just so beautiful.
BURGASSER: I agree. It is so beautiful and I'm also excited to be here.
We have a few other folks who are here as well. So Alexandra is from Sebastopol. I'm going to just turn us a little bit around and introduce Sheryl and Clint.
Come on up. Sheryl and Clint Evans, who are from Detroit, Michigan. Come on in.
SHERYL EVANS, MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER IN DETROIT: Hello.
BURGASSER: So you guys came all the way from Detroit --
S. EVANS: Yes.
BURGASSER: -- to the Mediterranean --
S. EVANS: Yes.
BURGASSER: -- to see this.
(LAUGH)
BURGASSER: So is this your first solar eclipse?
S. EVANS: It is not my first. It is my first total solar eclipse.
BURGASSER: OK, thank you for making the distinction.
(LAUGH)
S. EVANS: Yeah.
BURGASSER: We have many different kinds of solar eclipses. Some are total, some are partial. This is the first of the big game.
S. EVANS: Yes, it is.
BURGASSER: All right, and this is also your first total eclipse?
CLINT EVANS, CRUISE PASSENGER: Total eclipse, yes. BURGASSER: OK.
C. EVANS: But it's being my third altogether.
BURGASSER: Third altogether?
C. EVANS: Yes.
BURGASSER: Now, what encouraged you to take a cruise ship for this eclipse?
C. EVANS: Well, it was two years ago. My wife had a battle with cancer. She got out the hospital and living in Detroit, the path of totality was in Toledo, but she was too sick and we made her not come.
You know, she wasn't able to go. And I made her a promise. I said, you know what, wherever the next one is, we're going to go. Didn't know she was going to come back 30 minutes later and say --
(LAUGH)
C. EVANS: -- it's going to be in the Mediterranean. We need to book this cruise. But it was a promise, and thank God, I made this promise come true. And I'm more excited, more than anything, to be here with her.
BURGASSER: Oh, that is so sweet. And promise kept.
C. EVANS: Yes.
BURGASSER: So congratulations. This must be such an exciting event for you two, especially given that experience.
C. EVANS: Oh yeah, you know, I just want to soak it all in, the total path of totality, darkness. I want to see.
BURGASSER: Fabulous. OK, so that is what we're looking forward to.
Right now, we are about -- we're just at first contact here. That's when the moon and the sun just touch. The video you're seeing from Norway is a little bit ahead of us. In about an hour, we're going to be at total eclipse for here on the Oosterdam.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Dr. Adam Burgasser, number one, outstanding reporter skills.
KEILAR: Outstanding. I mean, a natural.
(LAUGH)
SANCHEZ: Folding all that into a live hit and those live interviews, that was great.
BURGASSER: Thank you.
SANCHEZ: Number two, I love that when that gentleman, Clint, promised his wife that he would take her to the next total solar eclipse, she came back 20 minutes later and said, we're going on a cruise in Spain.
(LAUGH)
SANCHEZ: And that, of course, he made that come true. Incredible. Congratulations to them. We're all envious of the views that you are going to have and that we are going to bring our viewers momentarily. Professor, thank you so much.
One of the things that most impressed us, Brianna, last time we were at a total solar eclipse was the strange way that animals started behaving, just downright bizarre behavior. There's a sudden disappearance of sunlight, obviously, but then the temperature drops as well. And that can be confusing, causing some of them to sort of throw off their nighttime routines.
KEILAR: Yeah, because they think it's nighttime. And it makes sense that they think it is. We're joined now by Helena Gylfadottir, who is Head of the Animal Department at Reykjavik Family Park and Zoo in Iceland.
Helena, last time we did this a couple of years ago, there was an ostrich, right, Boris?
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
KEILAR: What happened?
SANCHEZ: There was a partial eclipse. And out of nowhere, we were watching this herd of ostriches. And one of them just laid an egg, just pop -- just boom.
KEILAR: Yeah, which was --
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
KEILAR: It was almost as if it had been paid to do it.
(LAUGH)
KEILAR: But it hadn't been. It just did this. And as Iceland is going to see this totality approaching it, at least, have you started to observe anything unusual at the zoo?
HELENA GYLFADOTTIR, HEAD OF ANIMAL DEPARTMENT, REYKJAVIK FAMILY PARK AND ZOO: So what I've been observing is the animals are getting a bit loud. But that could also be because, unfortunately, we have a bit of rain and cloudy weather, so we can't see anything.
[13:35:00]
But yeah, we can feel the temperature starting to drop. I've seen a bunch of flocks of birds fly over like they're trying to prepare for nighttime. And I have sheep like right behind me and they are all trying to head back inside.
(LAUGH) SANCHEZ: Understandable given the circumstances there. Obviously, animals rely on heat and light as environmental clues. Help us understand why these solar eclipses throw them off and make them act in such humorous ways.
GYLFADOTTIR: So when the temperature drops, like you said, they think it's nighttime and that can disrupt their circadian rhythm which is when they go to sleep and wake up like we also have as humans. So when all of a sudden in like broad daylight, you get total darkness for even one minute, they think it's nighttime so it kind of disrupts everything that's going on with them. And it's really interesting to see like how quickly they're picking up on it because, even now, it's just slightly getting darker. So they're starting to feel it, I think.
KEILAR: Yeah, we're looking at some of the other live pictures that the zoo is putting out so that we can see how the different animals are behaving including what I think are the seals. I think we have some seals here.
SANCHEZ: Yep.
GYLFADOTTIR: Yeah.
KEILAR: I don't want to go out on too much of a limb. Yes, you're confirming that. Which animals, Helena, kind of react more to this? Are some of them a little more sensitive than others?
GYLFADOTTIR: Now I'm kind of guessing but I would think that birds, because birds are really like depending on darkness and daylight. So like a flock of geese just flew over and they're preparing to go to sleep. So I think that the birds will react the most because, in Iceland, we have during the winter, it's darkness for many hours of the day. So most of the animals here maybe are more used to having more darkness. But I think the birds are kind of most sensitive to this, at least from what I'm observing right now.
KEILAR: Yeah, that makes sense with the ostrich and the egg --
SANCHEZ: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
KEILAR: -- from our experience as well.
GYLFADOTTIR: Yeah.
(LAUGH)
KEILAR: Helena, thank you so much. This is really one of the most fun things, is the animals and we really thank you for showing us what's going on there in Reykjavik.
The partial eclipse has begun in the U.K. and Isa Soares is it the famous Land's End in Cornwall? Isa?
ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And it is looking absolutely magnificent. It has started, the music's out. People are getting ready for this magical moment. We are back after a short break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:42:10]
KEILAR: Welcome back to our Special Coverage of this Total Solar Eclipse which is starting to get underway. You can see on the upper left London, on the lower left Via Lombardo (ph), Spain. On the right side is Iceland, just outside of Reykjavik. So let's check back in with Isa Soares and Saskya Vandoorne.
Now, Isa is at the famous Land's End in Cornwall, England where the partial eclipse has officially begun. Isa, tell us what you're starting to see.
SOARES: I've started to hear a lot of wows from young children, Brianna, as they take their glasses and look up to the sky. Because we're starting to see, of course, the moon starting to cover the sun ever so slightly. People absolutely fixed to the sky. For once they're not looking down at their phones. They are looking absolutely mesmerized. We've also got a maypole dance, as you can see, to my left and all the way further down as people continue looking at the horizon.
There is also, as you go further down, a sense of calm, of utter amazement at this event that is both magical, but there's also a sense of antiquity to it, of history to it. Now in this country, we haven't seen a full total eclipse since 1999. And for a lot of young people, for new generation, this will be the first time they will be seeing it. So a lot of -- worth reminding people that they need to be watching the eclipse with these.
I have seen I have to say there, Brianna, lots of young children with cereal boxes, even colanders believe it or not as they try to be part of this moment. I met in the last few minutes a father and daughter, amateur astronomers who drove for seven hours just to be here for that moment, special moment. Something they may not comprehend today, the children, but tomorrow they will not forget. Brianna, Boris?
SANCHEZ: An experience I'm sure they will remember and cherish forever. We are all astronomers, all amateur astronomers today.
(LAUGH)
KEILAR: Yes.
SANCHEZ: Isa Soares in the U.K. for us, thank you so much. Let's go to Saskya Vandoorne in Paris where a large crowd is gathered there. Are you noticing any changes? It seems a little bit shadier where you are, Saskya.
SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN PARIS BUREAU CHIEF: It's a little bit shadier, but nothing has changed quite yet. And listening to Isa talking about that eclipse in 1999, I remember it. I was 12-years-old. I was in England and it was such a unique experience. It is something you don't forget. You know where you were when you first saw it. And for many people here, they are going to be witnessing an eclipse for the first time.
And one of those people is Elisa. She is 22-years-old. Elisa, are you excited? How are you feeling?
[13:45:00]
ELIZA PROSPERINI, STUDENT: I'm very, very, very excited. I've been waiting here for a while. And I just can't wait to see the eclipse finally.
VANDOORNE: Was it important for you to come and see this as a collective, to see this as a social occasion?
PROSPERINI: Yeah, for sure. I couldn't see myself just staring at my T.V. at home, so I'm happy I've come here with friends. I can hear people clapping, that feels really nice. Yeah, to experience this as a collective, yeah.
VANDOORNE: And what are you expecting it to look like? How do you expect it to feel?
PROSPERINI: I don't really know. I guess bizarre, weird. I've never seen anything like that in my whole life. So yeah, something extraordinary, like a film maybe. I guess, I expect a lot of orange and darkness. That's it.
VANDOORNE: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Eliza. We'll catch up with you after the partial eclipse. Boris, Brianna?
KEILAR: All right, and we are -- Saskya, thank you so much. We are looking now at Iceland. This is approaching totality. Is that correct? That's what we are seeing?
SANCHEZ: Yeah, we're seconds away.
KEILAR: All right. We are --
SANCHEZ: We just saw a bit of a solar flare there --
KEILAR: We are just about to see it.
SANCHEZ: -- on the left side of the screen. It looked like a big solar flare. We're joined now by Jeanette Epps, Astronaut, someone who's very steeped in the science of this as well. Tell us what we're looking at now that we're in totality officially in Iceland.
DR. JEANETTE EPPS, NASA ASTRONAUT (RET.): So the beautiful thing is now we can see the corona. And so you can't normally see the corona because the sun is so bright. And the corona is just the outer layer, atmosphere around the sun and is heated to temperatures millions of degrees higher than the sun surface itself.
And the corona is so interesting because it actually projects out into our solar system, affects the solar winds, and that does look like a solar flare. We also have something called prominence and flares. They're a little different. The prominence are, they're like -- they kind of look the same, but not really. One is more stable than the other. Flares are just instant bursts out into the solar system, but the prominence can last a lot longer.
So it's kind of the photographers are out getting all kinds of images of this. We even have Ham radio operators looking at this to try to figure out how our ionosphere is going to be impacted by -- how it does get impacted by the corona.
KEILAR: So just a week ago, the world's most powerful solar telescope captured the highest resolution observation of the sun's visible surface, right? I mean, these are -- this is the frontier of science, right? To have that happen just here days ago, and it uncovered a hidden process that drives solar activities.
As again, we're just looking, just absorbing these unbelievable pictures from Iceland as they're experiencing this sunset solar eclipse. It will come back today before this is over. This is in Reykjavik.
And how far has science come on solar studies and how far does it have to go?
EPPS: Well, I think we have a lot of work to do. I mean, there's still a lot of work to figure out just how the earth is impacted from it. Our communications are constantly being impacted by it, the amount of energy just that's spewed into the solar system from it. Our Ham radio operators constantly looking at how do we bounce signals off the ionosphere, but it also impacts the communications as they come in.
Wow, that's amazing.
SANCHEZ: That's incredible.
(LAUGH)
EPPS: It's amazing, yeah.
SANCHEZ: We've seen some of our signal get scrambled. I think those communication issues may have to do with so many people having their phones out, taking pictures and getting video. What is it for you that stands out in this kind of moment? We were asking Mitch Morales, who is in Iceland standing by a waterfall. I'm not sure if we have that image now, but it looked so eerie just moments ago.
And he was talking about the way that this unifies people and aligns people under the same phenomenon. I imagine some of those feelings that astronauts talk about when they're in space, looking at that pale blue dot in the distance --
EPPS: Yeah.
SANCHEZ: -- they come up at moments like this.
EPPS: Oh, yeah. It's very different seeing it from space, but it has the same impact on you because you're looking at your planet, and that one shadow as it passes over the earth, you know that it's covering billions of people. And there's so much life there, and it looks like there's something happening to our home.
But to be in the middle of it and feel it wash over you is just a unique feeling. And I think for a lot of people, it's very spiritual. And that's what's happening out in Iceland right now. A lot of people see this as a spiritual event.
[13:50:00]
It is an amazing thing to see what happens in our solar system and how it impacts individuals on the ground, people who may not be scientists, but they feel the impact of this.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
KEILAR: Yeah. It's that sort of nexus of the scientific and the spiritual, that is so amazing.
EPPS: Yeah.
KEILAR: Let's go back to Helena who is there at the zoo in Reykjavik. Helena, talk to us a little bit now that it's gotten dark and the animals are around you. Are you seeing them do anything weird?
(LAUGH)
GYLFADOTTIR: They just went a bit quiet during the darkest moments and we could see like birds flocking to the trees behind us, pigeons and other smaller birds. So probably thinking it's nighttime and they just wanted to go to sleep.
And now it's starting to get bright again and they just went back to wanting to go back inside because they think it's nighttime.
(LAUGH)
SANCHEZ: They're ready for their afternoon nap. I wonder if you have seen or heard about the other animals that are nearby. We were looking at some seals also.
GYLFADOTTIR: Yeah, I haven't. So I know that they're live, but I haven't gone to see them and I didn't see the live. So I'm very excited to see that afterwards to see what kind of reaction they had.
KEILAR: Listen, that one guy on the right, Boris, he was in the water before and now he's kind of out.
SANCHEZ: He's like, where's the fish at?
KEILAR: I think that he's like, all right, we're done swimming for the day.
(LAUGH)
KEILAR: I don't know. I'm obviously not scientific about this, but it is just so interesting that they wow us with their behavior.
(LAUGH)
KEILAR: They're running on this clock. They're running on the sun and you can see them as it's getting darker here in this video. What is going on, they say?
(LAUGH)
SANCHEZ: Really incredible to look at as we look at these live images. I wonder, Helena, for you, what is it like to witness something like this in person, aside from what the animals are experiencing?
GYLFADOTTIR: It's completely amazing. Like even though it's completely clouded and we couldn't see anything except it going dark and then light again, it's just -- it's another thing to experience because I experienced the one that wasn't total eclipse, but I think it was in 2015 that we saw here in Reykjavik and that was spectacular. But this was also -- this is just -- it's such a unique thing to experience.
KEILAR: Yeah, it certainly is. And we're seeing, as we've been monitoring, this picture out of Reykjavik that it is starting to get a little bit lighter. It had gotten entirely dark there, almost entirely dark as we were watching there. But obviously, it is starting to lighten up a little bit.
Dr. Epps, we were talking before about this kind of the spiritual and the scientific. I didn't know what to expect two years ago when I saw one. And I'm just such a nerd about this now and just the experience of it. I think there's something about everyone gathering together to witness something.
Everyone has a unique experience. They have their own impression of what it is or what it means for them, but they're together in doing it. And I think so often, you have a situation in our world where people are not brought together in that kind of way. So to have a moment like this is such a treasure.
EPPS: I totally agree. On Orbit, myself and the crew, we all gathered in the tiny Cupola. And we were all snapping pictures and taking pictures together and just awe of what was happening during our mission. So it made the mission special, seeing that from that vantage point and everyone being together on top of it, so --
SANCHEZ: Doctor, I have what on the surface may seem like a dumb question --
(LAUGH)
SANCHEZ: -- but I just thought of it as we're looking at this picture from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. And I wonder, the moon is way smaller than the sun. So how come it looks so much bigger right now?
(LAUGH)
EPPS: Right. It's the positioning of the distance from the sun to the moon and then the moon to the earth. So it's all positioning.
(LAUGH)
SANCHEZ: That makes sense.
KEILAR: And that's what the kids out there need to know.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
KEILAR: It's a matter of perspective.
EPPS: It's a matter of perspective.
KEILAR: Where these objects are in space, they can appear larger. The shadow can appear larger than actually the object is, right?
(LAUGH)
SANCHEZ: That's why we're fortunate to have Dr. Epps here on set to explain these complicated scientific ideas. Notably, though, as we get closer to seeing totality in other places, we're going to see some other phenomenon. We're going to see Baily's beads, for example, something that we experienced in Indianapolis two years ago.
Help us understand what Baily's beads are.
EPPS: OK. You guys are the expert on that one because I've never experienced that.
(LAUGH)
EPPS: So you guys have to be the experts on that one.
KEILAR: We have to be the experts. OK. So, oh, here's the waterfall. This was the gorgeous scene. Yeah. I know it looks like you're in Game of Thrones --
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
EPPS: Yeah.
KEILAR: -- right now watching this because you sort of are in a way.
[13:55:00]
We're looking at this beautiful scene from Iceland as it is starting to get a little more light there.
EPPS: Yeah.
KEILAR: You can see how many people have gathered there for this event. Really, really incredible. But there is a lot of science in addition to kind of the spiritual aspect that so many people are experiencing here. And we're going to talk a lot more about that ahead with Dr. Epps because the eclipse fun isn't over yet. There's a lot more ahead. In fact, most of it is actually ahead of us. This is a live view from a special Iberia flight that just took off from Madrid. This is from the air. We're chasing the eclipse to Spain, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
