The total solar eclipse, occurring on Aug. 12, 2026, in Spain and other parts of Europe, is bringing all the scientists to the yard. During a total eclipse, the moon completely covers the face of the sun, darkening the sky and revealing just the sun’s outer atmosphere called the corona. Scientists at the European Space Agency will be studying the eclipse to learn more about solar winds. Return of the ringFrom “our unique perspective on Earth during a total solar eclipse, scientists can study the sun’s corona in a way we can’t from anywhere else in the solar system,” Kelly Korreck, the eclipse program manager at the NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in the NASA article. In noneclipse times, “scientists study the sun’s atmosphere with satellites equipped with a coronagraph,” which blocks out the sun’s surface, said the Agence France-Presse .