On April 8, 2024, the moon will pass between the sun and the Earth, creating a total solar eclipse. The path of totality will stretch from Mexico to Maine.

It's the last total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous United States until Aug. 23, 2044. On average, any given location experiences a total solar eclipse once every 375 years.

Joel Achenbach is a science writer on the Post's National Desk. He joined the Post's Style section in 1990 after eight years at The Miami Herald. He wrote the syndicated column Why Things Are, an online-only column Rough Draft for washingtonpost.com and later, while working for the Sunday magazine, created the newsroom's first blog,

Matthew Cappucci is a meteorologist for The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang, as well as for the MyRadar app and various TV outlets. He is an avid storm chaser and self-proclaimed "umbraphile," and has traveled thousands of miles chasing solar eclipses. Cappucci graduated in 2019 with a B.A. in atmospheric sciences at Harvard. Nowadays, he can be found roaming the Great Plains in an armored truck dodging hailstones the size of softballs while chasing after tornadoes. His second book, "Extreme Weather for Kids," just came out.

To learn more about the eclipse, here are some recent stories from The Post:

• Five reasons 2024's solar eclipse will be better than the one in 2017
• The cosmic truth that gets revealed during a total solar eclipse
• How cloudy will your area be for the solar eclipse? See the forecast.
• It's dangerous to look at a partial eclipse. Science explains why.
• How to find special glasses for the total solar eclipse - and how to spot the fakes
• Birds, bees and even plants might act weird during the solar eclipse

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