All language subtitles for Great American Eclipse ¦ Full Documentary ¦ NOVA ¦ PBS

[Music]

a total solar

eclipse it's a rare and astonishing

natural

phenomenon seeing a total solar eclipse

is like w you know you just never forget

it solar eclipses have filled people

with Wonder since the earliest

times connects us with the past our

predecessors they observe the same thing

we see today whenever we look at an

eclipse do you feel a connection I am a

part of the universe I'm a part of the

solar system I'm a part of this

Celestial

event can scientists seize these

Precious Moments Of Darkness to explore

a region of the sun normally

invisible its outer atmosphere the solar

Corona the solar Corona is one of the

great key holes to peer into to truly

understand the behavior of the sun

behaviors like violent eruptions from

the corona can cause huge solar

storms the largest solar storms could

really

destabilize most of the world's

technology plunging cities Into

Darkness with the help of

eclipses can researchers decode these

dangerous blasts and one day learn to

predict them

it's completely extraordinary that

nature gives us this opportunity to turn

off the lights while Millions will enjoy

the spectacle scientists are among the

most Avid Eclipse Chasers studying the

sun on the

ground in the air and touching the

corona

itself their goal to better understand

our most important Celestial

neighbor Great American

Eclipse right now on

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it's one of Nature's greatest

spectacles the total solar eclipse is

like the universe just walked up to your

door and said hey here I am I'm Dynamic

and I'm doing

stuff and on April 8th

2024 everybody in the lower 48 states

can EXP experience at least a partial

solar

eclipse weather

permitting for the

31.5 million people who live in the path

of

totality the disc of the sun will

completely

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disappear it's very emotional the world

stops for a moment and you are

surrounded by a completely different

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Universe a total solar eclipse only

happens because of an astonishing

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coincidence the Earth Moon and Sun must

perfectly align so the moon blocks the

Sun's

light the diameter of the Moon is around

400 times smaller than that of the

Sun but the moon also just so happens to

be roughly 400 times closer to the Earth

so it appears the same size in the sky

as the

sun when it passes in front of the sun

it blocks the Sun's light casting a

shadow on the earth that plunges es

everywhere it passes into

darkness that experience is surreal it

is not like any other experience that a

human being can have at 11:07 a.m. local

time on Monday April 8th the darkest

part of the Moon Shadow hits Mexico's

Pacific Coast traveling at more than

1500 mph the shadow is over 100 miles

wide wide passing over Dallas at 1:40

p.m. through Arkansas and

Illinois over Indianapolis at 3:6

p.m. and buffalo at 3:18 p.m. local time

this Shadow will exit Continental North

America at 438 p.m. after touching 15 US

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states it's an completely extraordinary

coincidence that we get the angles just

right to make this work if we were

anywhere else in the solar system we

would not have this perfect

alignment and if the moon were any

closer to Earth or any larger it would

completely obscure the object the

scientists are trying to

study the sun's outer

atmosphere it's called

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but scientists on the ground only get a

chance to study the corona if they're in

the right

spot and if the weather

cooperates the bane of every Eclipse

Chaser is clouds and other weather that

keep them from seeing

totality statistically Mexico should

have the clearest Skies along the path

of totality during

April with Texas a runner

up but most places north of Missouri

have less than 50% chance of clear

skies standing on the center line of the

Moon Shadow gives you the most time to

view the

corona the last total solar eclipse to

pass across the US was in

2017 it was an unforgettable spectacle

witnessed by an estimated 215 million

people

but the maximum duration of totality was

just 2 minutes and 42

seconds in

2024 the maximum duration is almost

twice as long lasting 4 minutes and 28

seconds during the eclipse that gives

you a really unique opportunity to

suddenly see this Corona and to study it

scientifically the corona is less bright

quite a lot less bright than the main

part of the Sun so normally when you

observe the sun you're not able to see

that

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Corona the sun is so bright that until

the moon completely covers it the only

way to view it safely is to use

certified solar filters or Eclipse

viewing

[Applause]

glasses it's really exciting to watch

but there is this real danger of

blinding yourself or causing significant

eye

damage you've got to get these special

eclipse glasses these special eyewear

that block out

99.999% of the sunlight and virtually

all of the UV light that would really

damage your

eyes the human eye has a

lens it helps focus light onto the

retina which contains over 100 million

light sensitive receptor

cells these cells translate light into

electrical signals that the brain can

read as

images staring directly at the Sun the

focused beam from the lens becomes so

intense it can easily burn the cells in

the

retina leaving a permanent blind

spot eclipse glasses will prevent this

but the magnifying effect of telescopes

and binoculars can still destroy your

eye so you see what that light did to

these viewing glasses it would do the

same thing to your eye you'd blind

yourself

instantly even if you're wearing

certified solar viewing glasses you

cannot look through a telescope with

them unless there is a telescopic solar

filter on the telescope itself

during totality that total darkness you

can actually take off your solar glasses

and stare at the Sun for just a brief

moment and appreciate that Darkness with

that coronal light around it which is

one of these amazing moments that you

can only experience if you're actually

witnessing total solar

eclipse but on April 8th what about the

people who are not lucky enough to live

with thin or travel to the path of

totality what can they

see the good news is that nearly

everyone in the US lower 48 has a chance

to experience at least a partial

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eclipse you see roughly 10% more of the

sun with every 200 mil of distance from

the path of

totality for example

in Atlanta Georgia the moon covers just

over 80% of the sun's disc in Los

Angeles

California around

50% while in Portland Oregon just over

20% of the sun is

blocked imagine looking up at the sky

with proper eye protection and noticing

that part of the sun has gone missing

that is the joy and wonder of a partial

solar eclipse so even if you don't

experience total darkness you were still

experiencing this wondrous

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phenomenon but only the darkness of a

total eclipse allows us to see the sun's

outer

atmosphere the

corona the Corona's elusive pearly white

cloud is made from a state of matter

rarely found on Earth called

plasma

[Music]

sometimes we call plasma the fourth

state of matter there are many different

states of matter but the ones we're

custom to here on Earth are four solids

liquids gases and

plasmas if you heat a gas to a high

enough

temperature some of the electrons in its

atoms fly

off leaving positively charged

ions this super hot mixture of ions and

electrons is known as a plasma

nuclei to fuse

together creating helium and releasing

vast amounts of energy as

photons this nuclear fusion heats the

core to 27 million de

F from here the photons pass through the

dense inner layer of the

Sun the temperature of the plasma

gradually drops

as the photons reach the sun's visible

surface known as the

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Photosphere here rising and sinking

plasma forms a seething surface of light

and dark

areas around the Photosphere is the

Corona the sun's outer atmosphere of

extremely diffuse plasma extending far

into

space

the corona is called the corona because

it sort of has this Crown like shape and

Corona in Latin is the word for

Crown it's thin and wispy and hence very

dim compared to the actual surface of

the Sun so we need that surface to be

blocked in order to see the

corona but what more could science

discover if we could get

closer

in 2018 NASA launches a pioneering space

probe to do exactly

that it's called The Parker solar Probe

on board are instruments that will

change our understanding of the Sun and

study its extreme

Behavior Parker solar probe was

conceived in

1958 there was a big long wait because

our technology was trying to catch up

with our dreams

go Delta go

PSP r68 look good in the full dress

mode solar flares are large magnetic

eruptions which can cause particles to

come streaming towards the Earth we also

have coronal mass ejections which are

billions of tons of material equivalent

to 80 million school buses racing

towards us at millions of miles an hour

that can do things like interfere with

satellites or affect our power

grid but even when the sun is quiet a

lower intensity steady outflow of

charged solar particles forms what's

called solar

wind it has been a mystery as to why

that wind is accelerating constantly off

the solar

surface Parker solar probe is named for

Eugene Parker a very dear man who had a

theory about the origins of the solar

wind that paper laid the groundwork for

the study of the solar wind that we know

today Parker is the fastest human-made

object it'll reach speeds of 430,000

mph a 4 and 1/2 in thick heat shield

made from a carbon composite painted

with heat reflecting ceramic paint

protects the

probe the top heat shield is going to

experience 1300° C and in the back it's

going to be room temperature it's

important to have this huge temperature

difference those instruments in the back

need to operate in about room

temperature since 2018 the probe's

elongated orbit takes it progressively

closer Clos and closer to the

Sun and in December 2021 the team

announces a major

breakthrough Parker solar probe had

touched the

sun this is definitely a

first this is the Monumental achievement

of being able to say that we were inside

the atmosphere of a

star

some scientists assumed the sun's

atmosphere was smooth like a

ball this is the boundary where the

solar wind escapes the Sun's gravity and

magnetic

pull and Spills out into

space but Parker's data shows it is

undulating complex and

dynamic as the probe barrels through the

sun's atmosphere it runs into huge

magnetic structures rising from the

surface

called coronal pseudo

streamers these could be responsible for

the rugged edge of the sun's

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atmosphere the particles of the solar

wind are a

plasma we are just beginning to learn

more and more about how they're thrown

out of the

sun knowing the shape of that surface is

really important to understand the

formation and acceleration of the

solarwind towards

us

the strength of the solar wind depends

on the behavior of the sun's magnetic

field which varies according to an

11-year cycle called the solar

cycle and according to that pattern the

expected activity in

2024 could make the April Eclipse

particularly interesting for

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scientists in 2017 the sun was at a

minimum in 2024 the difference is going

to be that the sun will be very active

it will be at a maximum and those

maximums are where you get the

show there could be a lot of activity

going

on my dream is that there is a actually

a coronal mass ejection or flare going

off that we can see that would be

exciting solar eclipses have captivated

communities in North America for

centuries 3 hours Northwest of what is

now

Albuquerque this Canyon was once home to

the

Chans a Pueblo Native American people

who farmed the land here until the 13th

[Music]

century John Jihadi believes they were

closely attuned to the sun's movements

and rhythms

what makes the Pueblo communities

different from our neighbors throughout

this entire region is that they were

permanent agrarian

societies to be an agrarian society that

takes a great deal of planning and

problem solving if I plant too late I

may not get a Bountiful Harvest if I

plant too early maybe I'll get a late

Frost so by being able to have an

understanding of what time it means as

it applies to the seasons is essential

for

survival at the top of nearby fajada but

the Chans track the sun to measure the

seasons there were some slabs that

projects sunlight on a spiral on the

Equinox the light hits a certain point

in that and that's why it's called the

Sund

dagger the equinoxes Mark the most

moments in the year when day and night

are of roughly equal

length knowing when these happen is

vital for deciding when to plant and

when to

harvest but the Sund dagger is not the

only evidence that Chans watch the skies

[Music]

closely there's also a mysterious

Petroglyph here that suggests people on

this continent may have witnessed

eclipses that have passed across North

America over

centuries you see the circular uh symbol

here perhaps that represents the sun uh

in

totality around the symbol we see lines

or curvatures which perhaps we could

interpret as maybe the corona of the Sun

or the flares of the Sun that perhaps

someone might see in the total

eclipse scientists today can calculate

that in

1097 a total eclipse was visible here

while the sun was nearing the peak of

its solar cycle solar maximum when vast

plumes would have extended from the

Corona That's the tantalizing thing

about it much like whenever we have an

eclipse in our time and age people stop

work people want to go outside to record

this Monumental event because it's

something unique and special it connects

us with the past those are the same

celestial bodies that our predecessors

saw we're just really the same as they

were we just have different

tools there are

574 recognized indigenous communities

across the US with varying perspectives

on solar

eclipses the Navaho people consider an

eclipse to be a moment of renewal that

can be harmful if viewed

Cherokee tradition says a giant frog is

swallowing the

sun and the Frog must be scared away to

bring back the

daylight for the Casual Observer the

timing and location of eclipses can

appear

random after the April 2024 total solar

eclipse it will be 20 years years until

another is visible from the US lower

48 however the period of time between

total eclipses can be much

shorter nature cooperating with Bal H

elaborate preparations were made in

1925 American astronomers watched a

total eclipse as it passed from the

middle of the country to the east

coast some even flew in an Airship to

make

observations this fortunate generation

had already seen two total solar

eclipses in the previous 7

years and would see another only 7 years

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later despite this apparent Randomness

there is a complex pattern behind

eclipses and astonishingly it was was

discovered over 2,000 years

[Music]

ago ancient

Babylon situated in what is now modern

Iraq for centuries astronomers here

recorded every occasion an eclipse was

reported eventually around the 7th

Century BC they spotted a

pattern

some very clever Babylonian astronomers

figured out that solar eclipses are

governed by a cycle and this is the

so-call sah

cycle today we know that a total solar

eclipse will take place somewhere on

Earth about once every 18

months but with centuries of data the

Babylonians realized there was a larger

pattern every 18 years

the time between eclipses would

repeat they could actually make an

entire calendar of eclipse predictions

simply by projecting these past eclipses

into the

future astonishingly the Babylonian

predictions were accurate to within an

average of 4

hours but they couldn't tell where in

the world the eclipse would take

place

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it would be another 2,000 years before

astronomers figured out how to do

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that in 1715 the British astronomer

Edmund heli became the first person to

correctly predict a total solar eclipse

by using the mathematics of his good

friend Isaac Newton to calculate the

orbit of the moon around the earth and

therefore where its shadow would fall

across the

countryside in April

1715 hi published this map forecasting

that 2 weeks later an eclipse would pass

over Great

Britain hi had studied records of past

eclipses and rediscovered the Sara cycle

lost since ancient

times this told him an eclipse was

due he then used new accurate

observations of the moon's orbit to

calculate its

[Music]

path among the things he had to take

into account was the unusual orbit of

the

moon which is tilted by

5° so most of the time the Moon Shadow

misses our planet which makes eclipses

[Music]

rare he also had to factor in the

gravitational effect of the Earth and

the sun which subtly Alters the moon's

position just 28 years earlier Newton

had proposed his new theory of gravity

which allowed hie to accurately

calculate the path of the

eclipse from comparing the maps that

Edmund hel made of the 1715 Eclipse both

before and after based on the

observations by the public public we

find that he was actually within about

20 M amazingly

precise in H's estimate of the time of

the eclipse was off by Just 4

minutes today with more accurate

observations of the moon's orbit

astronomers can predict exactly where an

eclipse will occur to the nearest 100 ft

and when to the nearest tenth of a

second

This Is How They know the precise path

of the 2024 total eclipse years ahead of

time the dance between Earth Moon and

Sun is

predictable but the sun itself and its

Corona are

chaotic coronal mass ejections can

disrupt our power supplies and destroy

are Communications

Technologies so learning how to predict

coronal mass ejections is the Holy Grail

of solar

physics the sun is not some static

unchanging ball of gas right it is

ejecting parts of itself into the solar

system the solar Corona is this Dynamic

and everchanging and incredibly

beautiful Halo of plasma around the sun

it's so important in so many

ways the lines of plasma in the sun's

Corona are

vast they would dwarf the

Earth the force that drives their shape

and

motion is the sun's magnetic

field Earth also has a magnetic

field it's formed by our planet spinning

liquid metal core and gives us our

Magnetic

North and South

Poles but the sun has even stronger

magnetic fields created by the movement

of electrically charged particles

churning beneath the

surface because the plasma is moving

faster in some regions these fields Bend

and

twist

until some break through the sun's

Photosphere into the

corona where they form giant arches

called coronal

Loops because these magnetic fields trap

electrically charged particles they show

up as the bright lines and Loops of

plasma we see in the

corona but these field lines can

snap

the plasma is now free of its chains its

anchors from the Sun and it's free to

blast off into

space in a coronal mass ejection the

corona can throw a billion tons of

plasma out into

space at speeds of almost 2,000

Ms when a coronal mass ejection heads

our way Earth's Own magnetic field

normally deflects it

protecting the

planet but a large coronal mass ejection

can overwhelm our magnetic defenses with

devastating

consequences the coronal mass ejection

can stream toward the Earth and disrupt

our Technologies burn out power stations

damage sensors on satellites wreaking

havoc so we really need to be able to

predict these things

in June 2023 the Parker solar probe

makes a giant leap towards understanding

the mechanisms that project solar

material towards

us the probe flies close enough to the

surface of the Sun to examine the

origins of the solar

wind the sun's surface is a super heated

honeycomb of churning plasma cells each

the size of

Texas here magnetic plasma Loops get

dragged around and

Collide triggering explosions that

release vast amounts of energy and

catapult streams of plasma away from the

Sun scientists have calculated there are

thousands of these

jetletso that they can give birth to the

solar

wind this was a theory as to how some of

the solar wind was

formed as Parker got closer it showed

that this theory is actually at

work when Eugene Parker proposed these

theories they seemed like science

fiction and now they're becoming science

fact soon a new NASA mission called

punch will launch four cameras that will

orbit Earth to continuously map not only

how the solar wind flows towards and

around our planet but also across the

entire solar system so that's from space

Craig DeForest leads the team it doesn't

rule out the four cameras separate out

all the way around the world looking out

in different directions uh we

synchronize them so they're snapping

pictures at the exact same time to image

those clouds of material in all

directions in three dimensions as they

streak across the solar system sweeping

out and past

us with a system like punch we would be

able to track the events all the way

across the solar system this is

revolutionary we expect to be able to

greatly improve forecasting of space

weather back on Earth in October 2023

Craig gears up to test a new version of

an old instrument that for the first

time could make the sun's Elusive and

violent Corona visible to any of us at

any

time it's called a coronograph

what a coronograph does is interpose a

man-made object in front of a telescope

so that we can block out the sun just

like the moon would do and see the

corona around

it but coronagraphs have

limitations it's almost impossible to

block enough of the Sun's light to see

the corona unless they are either

incredibly precise and

expensive or they are deployed in space

above the Earth's light scattering

atmosphere allows the camera to see a

perfectly uniform Field view the team

hopes to produce the first ever

coronograph that anyone can download 3D

print and fit onto a telescope at home

there you there it is perfect we expect

to refine the design and be able to

publish a design that will access the

Corona on any sunny

day to help them test this device the

team has chosen a special

day over Albuquerque New Mexico today

there will be an annular solar

eclipse

the moon's orbit is not a perfect

circle it's very slightly

elliptical so when the moon is farther

from the earth it appears

smaller and doesn't completely cover the

sun creating an annular Eclipse also

known as a ring of fire

Eclipse we have a special case where the

moon does 90% of the work the sky is

much

darker by complete chance the annular

Eclipse coincides with the Albuquerque

International Balloon Fiesta the world's

largest gathering of

balloonists today we have 550 balloons

in this beautiful Albuquerque Sky we'll

have somewhere between

800,000 and 1 million come through our

gates we just got really lucky when we

saw that the eclipse was going to

coincide with our event we couldn't be

happier I think the crowd is going to be

in awe of getting to witness this once

in a-lifetime event because it's not

happened here before we just have to

thank mother nature and the calendar

lining up

together so we are about to have first

Contact 3 2 one oh yeah you see it right

on the top boom there's a

[Music]

bite

as the moon begins to line up with the

sun everything starts to get

weird because the sun is turning into a

crescent Sun the Shadows change shape so

is one of the most Eerie things about an

eclipse is the Shadows changing

[Music]

shape all right we have

[Music]

[Applause]

annularity all right

so this is so

beautiful it's a perfect

circle what a spectacular awesome

site thank you mother nature thank you

mother nature and thank you Balloon

Fiesta this is phenomenal

the visceral reactions that you feel

during the approach and during the

annularity itself are it's very hard to

describe it's it's very

moving annular eclipses are phenomenal

if you can ever get to the path of a

total solar eclipse it is incredible and

[Music]

life-changing we won't know until we

analyze the data that we got today just

how much of the corona we saw so if you

look if I turn this thing on and off

people are going

to so this is our coronograph look at

that they seem to line up so I think

we've seen the corona yeah I mean I

think that there's a really good

possibility what we're looking at is the

very first data and what we found is yes

it looks to me like it's the

corona we're not done yet we have more

analysis to do we've really just

begun

during the April 2024 total eclipse

amateur astronomers will work with

Scientists to study how the corona

changes in real

time citizen scientists or Community

participants they're going to get

training and we're going to deploy them

all along the eclipse path from the very

edge of the United States in Texas all

the way to the other Edge in Maine where

they will be able to to observe the

eclipse Shadow passing over each one of

them and that way we can put together

all of their observations into one

hourong movie of

totality and so that gives us

information about how the corona is

evolving and changing over a period of 1

hour these citizen scientists may play a

role in solving one of the most enduring

Mysteries of the

corona

[Music]

in the late 1800s a team of astronomers

studying the corona during an eclipse

made a surprising

discovery in 1869 there was a total

solar eclipse visible from the United

States Charles young an astronomer at

Dartmouth College LED an expedition to

Iowa in order to use the brand new

technology of

spectroscopy a spectroscope uses a prism

to divide white light into its

constituent colors or

wavelengths if you heat an element

enough its gas emits light in very

specific

wavelengths viewed through a

spectroscope each element has its own

unique pattern of colored

lines

by pointing a spectroscope at the corona

during an

eclipse young hoped to find the elements

it

contained what he discovered was a

mysterious spectral line no one had ever

seen coming from any element on

Earth he noticed that it was a special

Green Line green light emitted from the

Corona and since it matched up with no

known element people naturally assumed

that there must be some new element not

existing here on the earth that had been

discovered scientists gave this strange

new element a name coronium because it

had been discovered in the

Corona for the next 70 years astronomers

sought to identify what this mystery

element might be what they found in fact

was that it was a known element iron

iron at such a high temperature that 13

of its 26 electrons had been ripped

away astonishingly the corona was so hot

it had turned the metal iron into a

plasma with a spectral line completely

different from Iron found on

Earth only under extraordinarily high

temperatures is this ever possible so

when you see a total solar eclipse and

you witness that amazing Corona you are

seeing the hottest thing you will ever

see with the human

eye the corona is about 2 millon milon

de and that's a problem the surface of

the Sun is only about 10,000

de how can the sun's outer atmosphere be

hotter than its

surface it seems to defy basic laws of

physics back in 2017 in search of

answers scientists came up with a plan

to not only extend viewing time but also

avoid any clouds that might obscure the

eclipse Amir caspy and his team fly two

NASA jet aircraft fitted with telescopes

above the

clouds track the eclipse from an

altitude of 50,000

ft by getting above 90% of the

atmosphere above 90% of the water vapor

we can access wavelengths that we

normally wouldn't be able to on the

ground they hop their data might shed

light on why the corona is so much

hotter than the surface of the

Sun the idea is that they pick up the

track and follow the track straight

through during the entire the Jets could

not keep up with the eclipse Shadow

traveling around 1,500 mph more than

three times as fast as the

planes but by flying two Jets along the

path of the eclipse Amir extended the

viewing time to over 7

Minutes the instruments aboard amir's

Jets could image the infrared radiation

emitted by the Cor Cora in high

resolution infrared radiation is special

because it allows us to probe the

Corona's magnetic field and the Corona's

magnetic field is critically important

for pretty much everything that happens

in the Solar

Corona the infrared images of magnetic

structures in the corona collected by

air in his team in

2017 gave some unexpected

results one of the things that we

noticed is that structures called

prominences this is material from the

solar chromosphere the layer just above

the surface its temperature is only 10

20,000 de C other structures what we

call Active regions those are at

millions of degrees and we saw that

prominences and active regions were

glowing with approximately equal

brightness in the infrared

images that's something that boggled our

minds because they are a 100 times

different in temperature so how could

they be glowing at the same

intensity what are the physical

mechanisms that cause these dramatically

different regions to emit infrared

equally 2024 gives us a new opportunity

to study the Corona and answer some of

the questions that we opened in

2017 in 2024 can new instruments making

even more detailed measurements of

infrared radiation help us explain these

surprising

observations here's your incoming Vector

right Jenna Samra is looking for Clues

she and her team have built their own

spectroscope that also measures the

exact brightness of the infrared

light and they'll install this sensitive

equipment on board a Gulf Stream 5 jet

to track the eclipse from the air

models suggest there are infrared

wavelengths where the corona emits light

that we've not yet detected with

instruments these could eventually help

us measure the Corona's magnetic field

which stores the energy that heats the

corona physicists have predicted a

number of these bright wavelengths

called emission lines and our Spectrum

should Encompass about 20 of these and

about half of these have never been seen

before Jenna wants to find those missing

lines but what if they aren't there oh

okay would that mean the physicist's

predictions are

wrong for now they're just at the start

of their

investigation our instrument is going to

be a stepping stone for understanding

the the physics of the corona including

predicting solar flares and coronal mass

ejections but in a jet moving at over

500 mph power how can you keep the

eclipse perfectly centered so the

spectroscope can take reliable

measurements the apparent position of

the sun starts moving around so this

mirror actually tracks the sun it's

moving a thousand times a second to

basically take out the turbulence of the

airplane the mirror is autoc correcting

it's getting a signal from the camera

it's saying oh the sun has moved off of

Center bring it back to

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side

while Earthbound scientists are limited

to studying this eclipse from one

angle viewing from space will give

scientists an entirely different

perspective on how the sun's Corona and

its magnetic fields are shifting Heating

and Cooling during the

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eclipse the Parker solar probe will be

looking at the sun from 90° in relation

to the rest of us here on Earth during

the 2024

eclipse this will give multiple

perspectives on the Corona and allow

scientists to compare realtime data from

different

angles I'm so excited for the 2024

Eclipse it's been a long time coming to

really understand our star the

sun with clear weather Spectators under

the path of the eclipse can enjoy

totality for almost 4 and 1/2

minutes

but as the moon begins to reveal the sun

further Cosmic treats

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await here's the thing about the Moon is

not a smooth ball there are mountains

there are valleys so between those

valleys and Peaks you get light of the

sun peeking through and those little

bright dots look like a string of beads

we call that Bailey's beads so we can

actually see the Topography of the Moon

Illustrated and Amplified by the light

from the

sun as more sunlight creeps around the

edge of the Moon there's one final

astonishing

display then you have this big bright

spot and this is known as the diamond

ring it is stunning it's beautiful and

you don't want to miss

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it the 2024 Eclipse can teach us more

than ever before about our nearest star

that gives us life on

Earth total solar eclipses our amazing

celestial events to see it was just awe

inspiring to experience something so

extraordinary we are in a golden age

right now of solar

physics our understanding of what the

sun is doing is going to evolve

dramatically countless people around the

world and across Millennia have gave

gazed with Wonder and awe as the sun

disappears this how we as human beings

interpret this event that has been going

on as long as human beings have been on

this

planet let me tell you you have never

seen a shadow this spectacular it is a

truly remarkable event because you'd

have to wait years for the next total

eclipse to go over your

head

31.5 million people live in the path of

totality

a rare moment when the celestial dance

comes

home you don't want to miss this

opportunity to see the eclipse yeah

don't miss

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it

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