Credit – Illustration by TIME
a The total solar eclipse will pass over North America on Monday, April 8, providing a spectacle for tens of millions of people who live in its path and for others who will travel to see it.
A solar eclipse occurs during the new moon phase, when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow on the Earth and partially or completely blocking our view of the sun. Although an average of two solar eclipses occur each year, any given spot on Earth is in the path of totality only every 375 years on average. Astronomy reported.
“Eclipses themselves are not rare, just eclipses in your home are quite rare,” John Gianforte, director of the University of New Hampshire Observatory, tells TIME. If you stay where you live you may never encounter one, but if you are willing to travel you can see several. Gianforte has seen five eclipses and plans to travel to Texas this year, where the weather forecast is better.
An enjoyable part of experiencing a solar eclipse can be watching the people around you. “They can scream, they scream, they cry, they hug each other, and that’s because it’s such an incredibly beautiful event,” notes Gianforte, who also serves as an associate professor of space science education. “Everyone should see at least one in their lifetime because they are so spectacular. They are emotional events that evoke emotions.”
Here are 10 surprising facts about the science behind the phenomenon, what makes the 2024 solar eclipse unique and what to expect.
The total solar eclipse begins in the Pacific Ocean and ends in the Atlantic Ocean
The darker, inner shadow the moon casts is called the umbra, where you can see a rarer total solar eclipse. The outer, lighter second shadow is called the penumbra, under which you will see a partial solar eclipse visible in more locations.
The total solar eclipse will begin at 12:39 a.m. Eastern Time, just over 600 miles south of the Republic of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean, according to Astronomy. The umbra remains in contact with the Earth’s surface for three hours and sixteen minutes until it ends in the Atlantic Ocean, about 550 kilometers southwest of Ireland, at 3:55 p.m.
The Umbra enters the US at the Mexican border just south of Eagle Pass, Texas, and departs just north of Houlton, Maine, with an hour and eight minutes between entry and departure, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said. ) in a message to TIME. e-mail.
Mexico will see the longest totality during the eclipse
The longest totality will last four minutes and 28 seconds over a 350-mile stretch near the eclipse’s centerline, including west of Torreón, Mexico, according to NASA.
In the US, some parts of Texas will experience total solar eclipses of almost the same duration. In Fredericksburg, for example, totality lasts four minutes and 23 seconds — and that gets slightly longer as you travel west, the agency tells TIME. In most places along the centerline, totality lasts between three and a half minutes and four minutes.
There are more people currently living on the path of totality compared to the last solar eclipse
According to NASA, an estimated 31.6 million people will live in the path of totality during the 2024 solar eclipse, compared to 12 million during the last solar eclipse to cross the US in 2017.
The path of totality is much wider than in 2017, and this year’s eclipse will also pass through more cities and densely populated areas than last time.
A part of the sun that is usually hidden will reveal itself
Solar eclipses provide glimpses of the Sun’s corona: the star’s outer atmosphere that is normally not visible to humans due to the Sun’s brightness.
The corona consists of wispy, white strings of plasma – charged gas – that radiate from the sun. The corona is much hotter than the surface of the Sun: about 1 million degrees Celsius (1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit) compared to 5,500 degrees Celsius (9,940 degrees Fahrenheit).
The sun will be near its more dramatic solar maximum
During the 2024 solar eclipse, the sun will be near ‘solar maximum’. This is the most active phase of a roughly eleven-year solar cycle, which could lead to more prominent and clearer solar activity, Gianforte tells TIME.
“We are in a very active state of the sun, which makes eclipses more exciting, and [means there is] more to look forward to during the total phase of the eclipse,” he explains.
People should look for an extended, active corona with more points and perhaps some curls in it, and look for prominences, pink plasma explosions that jump off the Sun’s surface and are pulled back by the Sun’s magnetic field, and streamers that come loose. the sun.
Streamers “have a beautiful, beautiful pink hue and stand out against the black new moon moving across the disk of the sun, making them very noticeable. So it’s actually just a beautiful sight to look at the completely blacked out sun,” says Gianforte.