The only place to see the next total solar eclipse, on December 4, 2021, is in Antarctica above the world’s newly recognized Southern Ocean.
Eclipse-watching is on the minds of many given June 10’s “ring of fire” annual solar eclipse. The most spectacular eclipses are total solar eclipses and the entire decade of the 2020s will have only six. The next one is on December 4,2021 and there’s only one place in the world where you’ll be in the path of totality: Antarctica, over the world’s newly recognized Southern Ocean. On 2021’s World Ocean Day, June 8, National Geographic announced that the earth now has five oceans. The Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans are now officially joined by the Southern Ocean. The new name is because the Southern Ocean’s water are geographically and ecologically different from the southern parts of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. The Southern Ocean includes the waters around Antarctica to a latitude of 60 degrees south. While the other four oceans are defined by the land that surrounds them, the Southern Ocean is defined by a current—the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Seth Sykora-Bodie, a National Geographic Explorer and marine scientist at the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, explained it like this to National Geographic: “Anyone who has been there will struggle to explain what’s so mesmerizing about it, but they’ll all agree that the glaciers are bluer, the air colder, the mountains more intimidating, and the landscapes more captivating than anywhere else you can go.
