Total eclipse — South America (2020)
In the pandemic year, watchers in Chilean Patagonia caught the black sun through breaks in the rain.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
The moment of Total eclipse — South America (2020): https://nowsky.org/e/eclipse-2020 — opens at the right place and time, replayable, no login.
Available views: Orbit ✓ · Sky ✓
The story
On 14 December 2020, at the tail end of the pandemic year, the shadow of totality crossed Chilean and Argentine Patagonia. With borders closed, expeditions were nearly impossible and the eclipse belonged to local people rather than the world's eclipse chasers. The path was 90 km wide with totality up to 2 minutes 10 seconds.
Around Pucón in Chile a miracle arrived in the rain forecast: for the two minutes of totality the clouds split, and accounts survive of seeing raindrops and the black Sun at once. The Argentine steppe was mostly clear, and observers in Neuquén province saw the corona whole.
Falling at the very end of solar minimum, the corona showed the neat equatorial streamers typical of a quiet Sun. A coronal mass ejection just before totality left one side of the corona visibly bulging in photographs — a rare CME caught in a minimum corona.
The path also crossed the lands of the Mapuche people, and records note observations held alongside traditional ceremonies. The sky view replay shows the alignment over Patagonia that day.
Why it matters
The 2020 eclipse is the last record of a solar-minimum corona. Paired with 2017 (entering minimum) it showed the quiet Sun's magnetic structure twice, and became the reference against the flaring corona of the 2024 maximum eclipse. The three eclipses together show how the eleven-year cycle shapes the corona.
South America had two total eclipses seventeen months apart — 2 July 2019 (northern Chile and Argentina) and December 2020. Two totalities in one country so close together is rare, and Chile's astro-tourism infrastructure took shape then.
The pandemic eclipse was a turning point for online broadcasting. For observers who could not travel, Chilean and Argentine observatories and NASA ran multi-camera live streams, and the format became standard for the eclipses of 2023 and 2024.
How to watch
Choose the 2020 eclipse in the sky view's event list to replay totality over Pucón at 1:03 pm local time on 14 December — the Sun high near a southern-summer noon, the corona, and Jupiter and Saturn beside it. Move the location to Neuquén for the Argentine timing.
A week later, on 21 December, came the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn — which is why the two planets appear side by side left of the Sun in eclipse photographs. Both events can be viewed in sequence in the sky view.
The next total eclipse across mainland South America is not until 2048; the orbit view's event replay shows the Moon's shadow of 2020 brushing the southern tip of the continent.
See this for yourself — open that sky at that moment · replay the moment in the orbit view
Background
The eclipse was the 23rd member of Saros 142; the previous eclipse of the series crossed South Africa and Australia on 4 December 2002, and the next crosses Australia and New Zealand on 26 December 2038.
The path began in the Pacific, crossed Chile's Araucanía region (Temuco, Pucón, Villarrica) and Argentina's Neuquén and Río Negro provinces, and left over the Atlantic. Weather split along the Andes — humid on the Chilean west side, dry steppe on the Argentine east.
Chile restricted movement into the path to balance pandemic controls against crowds, and Argentina required advance registration for the observing zones. Even so, tens of thousands gathered on the Argentine steppe.
The December 2020 eclipse was the second solar eclipse of the year, paired with the annular eclipse over Africa and Asia on 21 June. Two or more solar eclipses in a year is normal; that one was annular and the other total comes down to the Moon’s distance. In June the Moon was near apogee and could not cover the Sun; in December it was close to perigee and totality followed. The two kinds could be compared within a single year, and viewing the two events in sequence in the sky view’s event list makes the difference in the Moon’s apparent size plain.
FAQ
How long was totality?
Up to 2 minutes 10 seconds, about 2 minutes at Pucón.
What was the weather like?
Rain was forecast on the Chilean side but the clouds parted at totality; the Argentine steppe was mostly clear.
What did the corona look like?
A solar-minimum shape stretched along the equator, with one side bulging from a coronal mass ejection just before.
When is South America's next total eclipse?
The next total eclipse across mainland South America is in 2048.
Related
- The Great Conjunction of 2020
- The Great American Eclipse (2017)
- Total eclipse — Australia & NZ (2037)
- The Sun — object index
- The Moon — object index
Times and figures are approximate — verify with official sources when planning travel. Simulation uses J2000 mean elements.