The village of Makanda, Ill., is about to experience nearly three minutes of fame.
That’s roughly the amount of time the moon will completely block the sun today in this small community in southern Illinois – the longest duration of totality anywhere in the United States during the solar eclipse, according to NASA.
The total solar eclipse is expected to start at about 10:16 a.m. in Oregon and move diagonally across the country until it ends in South Carolina at about 2:48 p.m. (The times are local.) The duration of totality, the period during which the moon completely covers the sun, varies by location.
The difference has to do with the geometry of the Earth and its distance from the moon, says Ernie Wright, a data visualizer at NASA. Totality will be shorter in Oregon because that part of the Earth is tilted away from the moon and farther from it.
The moon’s shadow also will move more quickly across Oregon, compared with the middle of the country. “When it hits the edge of the Earth, it has to swoop around the whole curve, so it moves quite a bit faster,” Wright says.