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For a moment, parts of North America will go dark on April 8 due to a total solar eclipse — when the moon, passing in front of the sun, will block all light. The last time this happened was in 2017, and it won’t happen again until 2044. It’s a moment you won’t want to miss — even if you don’t have the essential and safe eclipse glasses.
From 2 p.m. EST to 4 p.m. EST on April 8, Twitch and NASA will host live coverage of the celestial event as a “dynamic way to view this moment as part of a larger community.” The NASA livestream of the actual eclipse will be co-streamed alongside Minecraft and Fortnite streamers playing “eclipse-themed versions of Fortnite and Minecraft,” according to a news release. (Earlier this year, NASA and the National Esports Association teamed up for a game jam that asked college students to create game simulations of the eclipse, NASA said on its website.)
The exact timing of the eclipse — and the totality (or period where the moon is entirely blocking the sun) — depends on where you live. NASA said the first continental North American location to reach totality is “Mexico’s Pacific coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT.” The eclipse path moves across the continent from there until it leaves “continental North America on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at 5:16 p.m. NDT,” according to NASA. East coast viewers in Burlington, Vermont, for instance, will reach totality at 3:26 p.m. EST. There’s a full timeline on the NASA website. Of course, if you’re watching online, you’ll see footage from across North America from the 2 p.m. EST to 4 p.m. EST timeframe.
Here are the details from Twitch:
What: Twitch hosts NASA and Epic Games/Microsoft in collaboration with the National Esports Association
Where: Tune into Twitch.tv/nasa
When: Live on April 8 from 2 p.m. EST to 4 p.m. EST
