# Two Minutes of Totality: Inside the August 12 Eclipse

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676/two-minutes-of-totality-inside-the-august-12-eclipse
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676/two-minutes-of-totality-inside-the-august-12-eclipse.md
Podcast: [Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News](https://stenobird.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676)
Published: 2026-08-13T09:59:02+00:00
Episode link: http://www.astronomydaily.io
Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/track/op3.dev/e/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73902301/two_minutes_of_totality_inside_the_august_12_eclipse.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676/episodes/two-minutes-of-totality-inside-the-august-12-eclipse
Duration seconds: 953

## Resource

Anna and Avery break down yesterday's total solar eclipse — a 182-mile-wide shadow that swept from the Arctic through Greenland and Iceland to northern Spain, giving millions of people up to 2 minutes 18 seconds of totality. Plus: astronomers find three supermassive black holes sharing one distant galaxy (two are about to merge), Virgin Galactic pushes commercial spaceflight back to February 2027, and Rocket Lab signs a new launch customer for Neutron even as the rocket's debut slips further. **Full show notes:** Today's episode — S05E166, Thursday August 13, 2026: **Main story: The August 12 total solar eclipse.** The Moon's shadow crossed the Arctic Ocean, eastern Greenland, western Iceland, northern Spain, the Balearic Islands and out into the Mediterranean. Longest totality on land: 2 minutes 18 seconds at Látrabjarg, Iceland. Millions gathered across northern Spain, with the path also crossing A Coruña, Bilbao, Zaragoza, Valencia and Palma (Madrid and Barcelona were just outside the path). Observers reported seeing the solar corona, a prominence, and Jupiter, Mercury and Venus during totality. Spain gets another total eclipse on August 2, 2027. **Three supermassive black holes, one galaxy.** Astronomers led by Hannah Übler (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics) used JWST to confirm three actively feeding supermassive black holes in galaxy J0148-4214, 12.5 billion light-years away — the first such triple system ever confirmed. Two of the three are on course to merge. **Virgin Galactic delays commercial flights to 2027.** The company's upgraded Delta-class spaceplane will now begin commercial service in February 2027, pushed back from Q4 2026, to complete avionics and systems installation. Shares fell 12% after-hours. $750,000 seat packages were oversub…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676/episodes/two-minutes-of-totality-inside-the-august-12-eclipse/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676/two-minutes-of-totality-inside-the-august-12-eclipse.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.