Next April’s total solar eclipse promises to be a scientific bonanza

Florida. April’s total solar eclipse promises to be a scientific bonanza, thanks to new spacecraft and telescopes and cosmic possibilities.

The Moon will be very close to the Earth, causing a long and intense period of darkness, and the Sun should be more active with the possibility of spectacular plasma explosions. Then there is the densely populated corridor of totality that stretches from Mexico to the United States and Canada.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of the tens of millions of viewers will act as citizen scientistshelping NASA and other research groups better understand our planet and our star.

They will photograph the Sun’s corona-shaped outer atmosphere, or corona, as the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, blocking out the Sun’s light for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds on April 8. They will observe the stillness of the birds and other animals as the midday darkness falls. They will also measure falling temperatures, monitor clouds and use amateur radio to measure communications disruptions.

At the same time, rockets will lift off with scientific instruments toward the electrically charged portion of the atmosphere near the edge of space known as the ionosphere. The small rockets will lift off from Wallops Island, Virginia, about 400 miles from totality but with 81 percent of the Sun obscured in a partial eclipse. Similar launches were made from New Mexico during the solar eclipse of ring of Fire last October that devastated the western United States and Central and South America.

It’s time for the most important thing! It’s very exciting!!! said rocket mission manager Aroh Barjatya of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in an email.

NASA’s high-altitude jets will also fly again, chasing the Moon’s shadow with upgraded telescopes to study the solar corona and surrounding dust.

Dust sounds boringacknowledged Kelly Korreck, director of NASA’s eclipse program. But at the same time, this one is really interesting. Those are the remains from when the solar system was forming.

College students will launch more than 600 weather balloons along the runway, providing live feeds as they study atmospheric changes. Cloudy skies shouldn’t matter.

Luckily for us, balloons that fly at 80,000 feet or higher don’t care if it’s cloudy on the ground.said Angela Des Jardins, an astrophysicist at Montana State University who coordinates the nationwide project.

And if the Federal Aviation Administration approves, a 6.5-meter kite will lift a scientific instrument 5 kilometers above Texas in an experiment conducted by Shadia Habbal of the University of Hawaii. She also wants to overcome any clouds that might hinder her observations of the Sun.

The crown, hotter

Normally obscured by the Sun’s glare, the corona is revealed in its entirety during a total solar eclipse, making it a prime research target. The spiky tendrils emanating thousands of miles into space are disconcertingly hotter than the surface of the Sun, by millions of degrees, versus thousands.

Science still cannot explain how the corona heats up to such extreme temperaturessaid retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak, better known as Mr. Eclipse for his graphics and books on the subject.

The United States won’t see another total solar eclipse of this scale until 2045, so NASA and everyone else are doing everything they can.

The April eclipse will begin in the Pacific and make landfall in Mazatlán, Mexico, and pass through Texas and 14 other US states before crossing into Canada and emerging into the Atlantic in Newfoundland. Those outside the 185-kilometer-wide path will get a partial eclipse.

Scientists got a glimpse of what’s to come during the 2017 total solar eclipse that stretched from Oregon to South Carolina. This time, the Moon is closer to Earth, resulting in more minutes of darkness and a longer path.

Every time we can observe for longer, scientists get more dataKorreck said.

Another scientific advantage this time: the Sun will be just one year away from its maximum solar activity, unlike 2017, when it was close to its minimum. That means a lot more action on the Sun, possibly even a coronal mass ejection during the eclipse, with huge amounts of plasma and magnetic field launched into space.

Additionally, there are two new spacecraft studying the Sun: NASA and the European Space Agency’s Parker Solar Probe and NASA’s Solar Orbiter. They will join other eclipse spacecraft, including the International Space Station and its astronauts.

Closer to home, the April eclipse, unlike previous ones, will pass by three US radar sites typically used to monitor space weather. The stations will tune in to what’s happening in the upper atmosphere as the skies darken.