New Delhi, Aug. 11 -- 01 p.m. IST on Tuesday, Mars leaves Gemini and enters Cancer, closing a transit that has kept collective speech running faster than collective thought since late June. Seven minutes later, at 2:08 p.m., the Moon crosses out of Cancer and into Leo. Two ingresses inside a quarter of an hour is unusual. Two on the eve of a total solar eclipse rewrites the daily horoscope for all 12 zodiac signs.

07 p.m. IST on 12 August, with the greatest eclipse ten minutes later. The path of totality mapped by NASA runs from northern Russia over Greenland, clips western Iceland and comes ashore in northern Spain near sunset. Maximum totality is 2 minutes and 18 seconds, and the umbra measures 294 kilometres at its widest. It is the f...