Photos: Solar eclipse plunges parts of Europe into darkness

What the report says

Millions of people across Europe watched a total solar eclipse that turned daylight into darkness for a brief period, according to Al Jazeera’s photo report. The event began at 15:34 GMT and lasted about two minutes at the point of totality, with the moon fully covering the sun along a narrow path across the continent.

Al Jazeera said the eclipse’s path of totality crossed northern Russia, Greenland and Iceland before moving over Spain and a small part of Portugal, leaving roughly 15 million people in near-total darkness. A wider partial eclipse was visible across much of Western Europe, parts of northwest Africa, most of Canada and part of the northern United States.

The gallery showed scenes from several countries, including Iceland, Britain, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where crowds gathered in public spaces and observatories to view the phenomenon. The report noted that this was the first total solar eclipse seen by millions in Europe in 27 years.

Such eclipses are of interest to scientists and skywatchers because they allow close observation of the sun’s outer atmosphere and produce a rare daytime shadow effect, though Al Jazeera’s report focused on the visual experience rather than scientific analysis.