Vox Releases Solar Eclipse Animation For Each U.S. Zip Code

DETROIT (WWJ) -- The U.S. will have its first total solar eclipse spanning coast to coast in 99 years later this month.

Michigan is not lucky enough to witness an entire solar eclipse -- it'll stretch from Oregon, through the Midwestern plains, down to South Carolina -- but one website has a guide that'll give you a preview on what you will be able to see. Those in Metro Detroit will get to see a "partial eclipse" on Aug. 21, and through Vox you can see when and how long the eclipse will last.

All you need to do is punch in the zip code of where you'll be and the eclipse generator will show you when it'll begin, how long it'll last and an animation of how it'll look. It'll also give you the exact peak time of the eclipse and how much of the sun is obscured by the moon.

For example, if you'll be at Campus Martius Park in Detroit -- zip code of 48226 -- on Monday then the solar eclipse will last from 1:03 p.m. to 3:48 p.m. with a peak eclipse of 79.3 percent at 2:27 p.m.

The eclipse generator also lets you know how far away you are from the total eclipse. For instance, those at Campus Martius Park would need to travel 408 miles southwest to witness the total eclipse.

According to Vox, the eclipse animation relies on data from the the United States Naval Observatory. It uses "entering and exiting vertex angles along with the maximum obscuration percentage to calculate the trajectory of the moon across the sun."

If you're interested in witnessing history, click here to punch in your zip code and figure out to when the solar eclipse will begin in your neighborhood.