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A total solar eclipse seen in Hopkinsville, Kyoto.
© Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post
When the moon blocks the sun on April 8th, ushering in a total solar eclipse, scientists can learn a lot.
On April 8, the moon will obscure our view of the sun, causing a rare total solar eclipse that will be visible across Mexico, the eastern half of the United States and as far away as Newfoundland, Canada.
The beauty of the celestial event is reason enough to document it, but scientists have also launched projects to study its effects.
Some of these projects enlist the help of eclipse watchers, including you.
While the solar eclipse is happening far above our heads, the effects on Earth can be very personal.
The moon's shadow reaches the Earth's atmosphere and surface.
The sudden darkness affects the behavior of animals, including that of people who know it is coming.
It affects the chemical reactions around us and what we can see in space.
“This is a unique opportunity.
It passes over very densely populated areas in the US and everyone should try to see it,” said Liz MacDonald, head of citizen science in NASA’s Heliophysics Division.
Although the last total solar eclipse in the United States occurred in 2017, there won't be another one until 2044.
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Total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024: observations on the Earth's surface
Here's what scientists hope to learn this time.
As a viewer, you may notice a change in the sounds around you.
The birds might stop chirping and the crickets start.
Nocturnal owls and bats may begin to stir.
As part of a project, people can help document the changes in sounds.
Scientists and non-scientists will use special audio recorders to record cricket sounds as part of the Eclipse Soundscapes project.
The project draws on a similar study from 1935, when a scientist placed an advertisement in a newspaper asking people to submit their observations.
For example, near totality, crickets were reported to begin chirping as if it were evening.
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Park rangers at Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas are setting up high-quality recording equipment in hopes of capturing the sounds of the endangered bats that could give them insight into the population's health.
Unless the bats are still in hibernation, this could be the first time their sounds have been recorded during a solar eclipse in the park.
“Solar eclipses are multisensory events,” says MaryKay Severino, co-founder and education director of Eclipse Soundscapes.
“It's about how you experience the solar eclipse, and you can do that with all your senses.” The air temperature typically drops by 10 degrees Celsius during totality.
The GLOBE Observer app allows people to report temperature and clouds.
The data will help NASA scientists learn more about what happens when you temporarily turn off the sun on our solar-powered Earth.
Anyone can participate in the project by downloading the app.
Total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024: observations in the Earth's atmosphere
More subtle changes are taking place in the atmosphere - at least to the casual observer - including layers that influence our weather.
To gather information, a project led by Montana State University is sending helium-filled balloons carrying scientific instruments into the air.
Student teams from various institutions will send balloons from the ground into the stratosphere, where the ozone layer is located, to collect data.
For example, the teams want to find out at what height the temperature drop is greatest and how long the time span between the decrease in solar radiation and the drop in surface temperature is.
They will also test how far video streams can be reliably transmitted by live streaming the ascent of a balloon during the solar eclipse.
You can see that here.
The teams will also study the formation of turbulent air waves in our atmosphere, known as gravity waves.
They arise where the air is disturbed and ripples like a stone dropped into a calm pond.
“When you fly low over mountains in an airplane, the turbulence you feel is most likely due to gravity waves,” says Thomas Colligan, a scientific software engineer at NASA.
He and his colleagues were the first to document a gravity wave during the 2019 total solar eclipse.
People watch the solar eclipse during a viewing party at the former MUSC Health Stadium in Charleston, SC on August 21, 2017 © Matt McClain/The Washington Post
Gravity waves can be caused by mountains, thunderstorms, explosions - and solar eclipses.
The moon's shadow cools the atmosphere and creates gravity waves, similar to the bow of a ship moving through water, Colligan said.
Atmospheric gravity waves can affect the temperature and chemistry of the atmosphere and create clouds.
A more precise understanding of how gravity waves work could improve weather models and forecasts.
Total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024: Further observations
Above the stratosphere, scientists are studying the effects of the solar eclipse on the ionosphere - the transition from Earth's atmosphere to space.
The ionosphere contains all of the charged particles in the Earth's atmosphere and many of our satellites.
Sudden changes in this layer, e.g.
B. from a solar eclipse, could impact communications systems - at least that's what some experts and citizen scientists hope to observe.
As part of the HamSCI project, radio amateurs using high-frequency radios will try to make contact in as many different locations as possible during the total eclipse.
During the eclipse, the Sun temporarily stops electrifying the ionosphere, so signals may be heard from greater distances than usual or disappear.
Even though the solar eclipse is over North America, high-frequency radio signals could be transmitted around the world.
"People who are not directly below the line of totality can hear the eclipse on their radios," says Ruth Bamford, a researcher at Britain's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
For example, you can listen to a radio station before the eclipse, which then disappears during the eclipse.
Or a radio station could fade in and out during the eclipse.
Because scientists know exactly when and where the moon's shadow occurs during the eclipse, Bamford says they can model what they expect and compare that with observations.
Although she is not involved in the current HamSCI experiment, her previous experiments have shown how charges recombine at different rates in the ionosphere.
“This type of experiment provides an enormous amount of data that we cannot obtain at any other time,” said Bamford.
It “provides us with the opportunity to test our models of the behavior of the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024: Observations on our sun
It may seem strange that scientists would want to study the sun when most of the sun is obscured by the moon.
But that's exactly why they point their instruments at our host star.
The solar disk is so bright that we cannot observe the sun's outer edge, but the moon obscures the disk during the eclipse, providing an excellent view of the sun's outer halo.
"The sun is far away, and the solar eclipse is a special opportunity to see the edge of the sun that we don't normally see," said MacDonald, a NASA space scientist.
This time the scientists want to answer at least one very basic question about the sun: How big is the sun?
They have a general idea, but there's still a lot of room for error, MacDonald said.
The SunSketcher app allows anyone to take pictures of a phenomenon on the sun known as Bailey's beads before and after the eclipse, helping scientists determine the shape and extent of the sun's outer edge.
Several other projects will also study the dynamics of the sun's outermost layer, the corona.
As part of the Citizen-CATE project, volunteers will capture images of the corona in polarized light to study the flow of the solar wind, the formation of the solar wind and the connections in the corona.
NASA aircraft will fly at an altitude of 50,000 feet (about 15 km) above Earth's surface during the eclipse to learn more about the temperature and chemical composition of the corona and about explosions on the sun's surface, called coronal mass ejections.
The planes will have scientific instruments on board that will also capture images in infrared and visible light that will help scientists study the dust ring around the sun and locate asteroids in its vicinity.
The eclipse could also shed light on how the extremely hot ionized gas that makes up the Sun, called plasma, flows through its outer layers.
For the Eclipse Megamovie, volunteers will take photos of the solar eclipse to study how plasma flows through the corona and the chromosphere (directly beneath the corona).
The researchers have photos from this project from 2017, but they expect 2024 to be even more interesting because the sun enters a particularly active phase called solar maximum.
“Every few years you get the chance to make these very rare observations,” says MacDonald.
“As a scientist, I am excited about the opportunities available to people and the opportunities they want to take advantage of to learn more.
There are lots of different ways they can get involved in science.”
About the author
Kasha Patel
writes the weekly Hidden Planet column, covering scientific topics surrounding Earth, from our inner core to space storms headed toward our planet.
She also reports on weather, climate and environmental issues.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on March 10, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.