And here are some words, though far less than 1,000 of them:

When

Obviously the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, occurs on August 21, 2017! That's a Monday — in many places, the first day of the new school year.

It takes about 90 minutes for the Moon's dark shadow to cross the country, starting around 10:15 am Pacific time on the West Coast and ending around 2:45 pm Eastern time (11:45 am Pacific time) on the East Coast. When you hear someone say, "the total eclipse lasts 90 minutes," that's what they mean. But that could be misleading: At any given location within the path of the Moon's shadow, the total eclipse lasts at most 2 minutes 40 seconds — don't be late!

The Moon takes its first "bite" out of the Sun, marking the start of the partial eclipse, 1¼ to 1½ hours earlier, around 9:00 am PDT on the West Coast and 1:15 pm EDT on the East Coast. The Moon uncovers the last of the Sun's bright face 2½ to 3 hours after that, around 11:30 am PDT on the West Coast and 4:15 pm EDT on the East Coast. This marks the end of the partial eclipse.

Here's a table with times for a handful of U.S. cities and towns in the path of totality, courtesy of NASA:

To find out when the eclipse occurs at any other location (and what it will look like from that location), visit TimeandDate.org or use any of the interactive Google maps and/or eclipse calculators on our Maps & Calculators page.