Total Solar Eclipse | 6 scientific investigations that will be carried out during the eclipse and which of them you can participate in

With rockets, airplanes, balloons, sound recordings or behavioral observations, the total eclipse of Sol which can be seen in North America on Monday, April 8, will be followed in an unprecedented level of detail.

Although a total solar eclipse occurs somewhere on Earth every 18 months, this year’s is particularly special due to the large area of ​​populated territory it will cross, allowing some 31 million people to contemplate it.

LOOK: What is a total solar eclipse like the one that will be seen in Mexico, the US and Canada and what other types of eclipse exist

From the Mexican city of Mazatlán, on the Pacific coast, to the Canadian eastern coast of Newfoundland, the Moon will perfectly block the Sun and cast its shadow on the ground, turning the day into almost a night.

This phenomenon that produces so much fascination among people is also a valuable source of information for scientists, who are preparing numerous experiments to observe an eclipse unique in its characteristics since it will double in time and will have a much broader trajectory than the one that occurred in 2017.

Here we tell you what six of those investigations will be like and which of them you can participate in.

The reaction of animal life

Adam Hartstone-Rose of North Carolina State University is leading a project to study how wildlife reacts to the eclipse.

Already in 2017, he sent teams of researchers to different zoos located in the path of the total eclipse and was able to observe different types of behavior.

A group of gorillas, for example, headed out to dinner because they thought it was dark, the giraffes began galloping, and a group of Galapagos tortoises became more active until “right at the height of totality, “They started to mate.”

“It’s something we can’t explain and maybe it was something specific.”Hartstone-Rose acknowledged. “This time we will see more turtles,” she added.

In addition to her research, Hartstone-Rose is asking the general public to conduct their own studies of animal behavior, whether by observing pets or nearby wild animals, and upload their observations to the Internet.

Soundscapes project

Another study that will focus on animal behavior is the one led by Trae Winter at the Advanced Research in Steam Inclusion and Accessibility Laboratory (Arisa) in Massachusetts.

Under your responsibility will be the Eclipse Soundscapes project from NASA, which will use small, phone-sized devices equipped with microphones, called AudioMoths, to listen to the sounds of nearby animals.

Hundreds of volunteers will place the devices along the path where the eclipse will reach totality, allowing Winter and his team to hear how different animals react. both to the decrease in light during totality and the associated decrease in temperature of about 5.5 °C.

“It’s a multi-sensory experience,” said Winter, who explained that the study will look at various types of animals, from crickets to humans.

“I’m looking forward to hearing from many humans experiencing an eclipse for the first time and the excited sounds they make,” says Winter.

Atmospheric disturbances in the eclipse path

Not everyone who studies the eclipse will be able to witness it. When the Moon crosses the Sun, Aroh Barjatya, of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, will be hundreds of kilometers from the places where it will be appreciated in its entirety, at NASA’s Wallops Flight facilities in Virginia.

There you will be in charge of a unique experiment that consists of launch three sounding rockets at an altitude of 420km before, during and after the eclipse to observe possible changes in the atmosphere, and more specifically in the ionosphere.

Ionospheric fluctuations outside of an eclipse can affect satellite communications, so an eclipse offers a rare opportunity to study these changes in greater detail.

Eclipse mega-movie project

It is no surprise that in an age of smartphones and digital devices the 2024 eclipse will become one of the most photographed events in history.

And to take advantage of that effort, Laura Peticolas, from Sonoma State University (California), is asking everyone who wants to participate in her project Eclipse Megamovie which aims to bring together hundreds of images in a single film about the entirety of this natural phenomenon.

Peticolas carried out the same project in 2017, but noted that “it was not as beautiful as we imagined in our minds” due to the lack of images.

The hope is to have more images to achieve a much more polished product. that can reveal characteristics of the solar corona such as jet-shaped hot plasma ejections that shoot around the Moon, and watch their evolution as different people take images along the trajectory.

This year is expected to be particularly special because the Sun is heading toward its period of maximum activity, called solar maximum, which occurs on an 11-year cycle for reasons that are not yet fully understood.

“I expect about 500 volunteers to upload their images,” Peticolas said.

Study of the solar corona from NASA’s WB-57 aircraft

For many people on the ground, weather can be a crucial factor in whether or not to see the totality of the eclipse, as cloud cover always threatens to spoil the view of the Sun.

One way to avoid this is to be higher than the clouds, as NASA will do, which will take to the skies with two of its WB-57 aircraft.

Flying at 15 km high, the planes will follow the path of totality off the coast of Mexico, experiencing about seven minutes of darkness, and will be equipped with instruments to study the Sun.

Leading one of the experiments is Amir Caspi, from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, who will use an infrared camera on board one of the planes to study the solar corona.

One of the main mysteries of the corona is that it reaches millions of degrees of temperature compared to 5,000 °C on the surface of the Sun, for reasons that cannot be fully explained.

Caspi believes there may be a relationship between the Sun’s plasma ejections, called prominences, and the corona itself. These prominences are up to 30,000 °C, much colder than the corona, but they can emit with the same intensity in the infrared.

“We are trying to answer what this emission contributes to,” Caspi says. One answer could lie in how the magnetic fields on the Sun’s surface twist and turn.

Balloons for the Eclipse

If rockets and airplanes aren’t enough, Montana State University’s Angela Des Jardins will lead 53 student teams from across the United States that will send about 600 balloons into the atmosphere as part of the National Eclipse Balloon Project.

The balloons, which will reach 35 km in height, will use instruments to observe how Earth’s atmosphere and climate react to the changing conditions of the eclipse.

Some of the instruments will study gravitational waves, while others will measure humidity, wind direction and speed to monitor any changes caused by the eclipse.

“Having 600 balloons flying and measuring the atmosphere is a wonderfully rich source of data,” says Des Jardins.

Some balloons will also incorporate onboard cameras to broadcast the eclipse live.