Washington ,Aug. 13 (SANA)A rare totalsolar eclipseswept across parts of theArctic and Europeon Wednesday, briefly plunging areas along its path into darkness as the Moon passed directly betweenEarth and the Sun.

The total eclipse was visible from parts ofRussia, Greenland, Iceland and Spain, while a partial eclipse could be seen across much of Europe, northern Asia and northwestern Africa, including Algeria and Morocco, according to the U.S. space agency NASA.

Most ofNorth Americaand parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the Arctic also experienced a partial eclipse.

The longest period of totality, lasting about two minutes and 18 seconds, occurred off Iceland’s western coast. The event marked the first total solar eclipse visible from Spain since 1905 and the first seen in Europe since 2006.

At maximum eclipse, the Moon’s apparent disk covered about 103.9% of the Sun’s disk. The eclipse reached its global maximum at 5:46 p.m. GMT and ended at around 7:58 p.m. GMT, with the entire event lasting about four hours and 24 minutes.

Solar eclipsesoccur when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, blocking some or all of the Sun’s light from reaching parts of Earth.

Total eclipses also provide scientists with a rare opportunity to study the solar corona and other outer regions of the Sun that are normally difficult to observe because of the brightness of the solar disk.

Researchers can also use eclipses to examine how the sudden reduction in sunlight affects Earth’s atmosphere.