Cosmic masterpiece

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the solar eclipse.

On Monday, people from Mexico to Maine will have the rare opportunity to watch the moon cover the sun. Cities along the path of the eclipse have been preparing for a mass influx of visitors who hope to see it for themselves.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: According to estimates from eclipse cartographer Michael Zeiler at GreatAmericanEclipse.com, Texas could receive over a million visitors…while hundreds of thousands travel to Indiana and Ohio.

So, what makes this eclipse worth the effort to see?

Our producer Harrison Watters has the story.

HARRISON WATTERS: David DeFelice wasn’t sure what he’d do after retiring from a 38-year career at NASA. But he had an idea.

DAVID DEFELICE: I serve as a as an elder at Hope church, with the Christian Missionary Alliance in Brunswick, Ohio, and just felt God leading to do an event for the community there.

DeFelice previously worked in communications at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in nearby Cleveland, Ohio…a city with front row seats to Monday’s total eclipse.

DEFELICE: The path actually brings this eclipse through many more major metropolitan areas, from just outside San Antonio through Dallas, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, cities in Arkansas, over places like Niagara Falls, and Rochester, New York and into New England, so much greater ability for people to actually travel into the path of totality to see it.

The total eclipse will first be seen in Eagle Pass, Texas…just before 1:30pm Central Time. From there, it will cross the country and leave Maine at 4:30pm Eastern Time. DeFelice says for those who live near the path of totality, going the distance to watch it is worth it.

DEFELICE: You don't want to settle for even 99% eclipse, it's, the difference is the difference between night and day.

Because the earth and moon circle the sun on different paths and at different speeds, total solar eclipses don’t happen very often. And when they do, many occur over the ocean or other unpopulated parts of the earth. So with this eclipse so close to home, scientists at NASA have big plans to study it.

KORRECK: We'll be using rockets, planes and balloons, and on the ground observations to optimize the science return of the eclipse.

Kelly Korreck is NASA’s eclipse program manager. She and other department heads laid out plans during a press conference last week.

One focal point for study: the sun’s atmosphere—or corona. Pam Melroy is NASA’s Deputy Administrator.

MELROY: Things are happening with the corona that we don't fully understand. And the Eclipse gives us a unique opportunity to collect data that may give insights into the future of our star.

Heliophysicists, scientists who study the sun, generally use tools called coronagraphs to block the sunlight and study the atmosphere. But as Elsayed Talaat, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, points out…

TALAAT: In a total eclipse, we see the corona in a way that not even coronagraphs can fully capture. This is why we call it nature's coronagraph.

The sun is just part of the scientific puzzle. Another question scientists hope to answer is how the total eclipse affects the earth’s ionosphere. Again, Kelly Korreck:

KORRECK: That layer is important as it's the one that our communication signals pass through. Disturbances in this layer can cause issues with GPS, and communications.

But not everyone on the ground will be looking at the sky. Some will be listening to the environment around them.

PIJANOWSKI: All of the sounds around you will be changing, I hope. I mean, that's my hypothesis.

Bryan Pijanowski is Director of the Center for Global Soundscapes at Purdue University. He and his students travel the world capturing the audio signatures of different environments. Back in 2017, Pijanowski was in Nashville when a total eclipse crossed from Oregon to South Carolina.

PIJANOWSKI: The birds that normally sing during the day started to quiet down. I mean, it just made a lot of sense. The insects like the crickets started chirping…it got cold. And the winds died down.

This time around, Pijanowski and his team have set up recording devices across the state of Indiana…in forests, near rivers…even in ponds.

PIJANOWSKI: To our knowledge, no one's recorded the sounds of underwater life. So we're going to be doing that…And then eventually we’ll come back to the lab and do a quick little analysis, we’ll run it through all of our routines, and see what we hear.

While many are approaching Monday’s eclipse with research top of mind, even NASA Administrator Bill Nelson recognizes that something more fundamental will take place as well.

NELSON: Eclipses have a special power. They move people to feel a kind of reverence for the beauty of our universe.

For DeFelice at Hope Church in Cleveland, that beauty is no accident. And it’s why the event he is putting together is called Glory in the Skies.

DEFELICE: You know, you read information from NASA, they talk about solar eclipses on Earth are a convenient coincidence, because the sun's diameter is 400 times larger than the Earth and the Sun 400 times farther away than the moon is, it's like, that's not a coincidence, you know, when, you know, having a Christian worldview, you can kind of see how God did that, and that’s not just an eclipse. The fact that we have laws of nature and that things are predictable points to a creator God who created the universe with uniformity and regularity that you can predict eclipses. And I think that all just shows forth God’s glory.

In order to watch even a partial eclipse safely, DeFelice says eclipse glasses are a necessity. NASA has details online for where to get glasses and binoculars…as well as instructions for home-made viewing tools. But for those watching the total eclipse, DeFelice has an important reminder.

DEFELICE: If you're looking at it…and you can't see anything anymore, it's time to take off your glasses, otherwise you'll miss it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters.

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