Totality! See the first photos of the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse over Spain

Astronomers captured breathtaking photos of Wednesday's total solar eclipse as it passed over Spain. The celestial event saw the moon completely obscure the sun, leaving the daytime sky in twilight for about 90 seconds. This allowed the sun's elusive corona, or outer atmosphere, to become visible. In one image, the moon appears as a black circle, with white spikes of light encircling it - the corona, which is typically invisible to the naked eye but can reach temperatures millions of degrees hotter than the sun's surface.

Another photo shows a bright-pink prominence shooting from the sun's surface, a towering structure of plasma held by magnetic fields. The phenomenon known as Baily's Beads, which creates a diamond ring effect, was also observed on the edges of the moon just before and after totality. This occurs when the last bits of sunlight shine through uneven mountains on the lunar surface.

The eclipse's path of totality stretched from the North Pole to Greenland, western Iceland, and northern Spain. Viewers outside this path experienced a partial eclipse, with coverage ranging from 10% to 90% in different regions. A few days later, the Perseid meteor shower will peak, potentially offering up to 75 shooting stars per hour under a dark sky.