MADRID - Scientists plan to use a total solar eclipse that will be visible in Spain next week as a rare chance to learn more about the stormy, unpredictable nature of our star. He achieved this by observing the effect of a light-bending phenomenon called gravitational lensing on the stars that became visible while the Sun's dazzling light was obscured. More than a century later, scientists will watch a total solar eclipse lasting a minute and 40 seconds appear across a swathe of northern Spain next week. "Our work aims to understand the physical mechanisms underlying the Sun's activity," Allan Sacha Brun, an astrophysicist at France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), told AFP. Every day, specialists are working on models aiming to explain solar activity, allowing them "to put the Sun back into context within its evolutionary timeline, from its birth to its death," he added.