Apr 8, 2024, 11:28am GMT
On Monday, April 8, when it will be evening in the Eastern Hemisphere, it will be possible to observe a total solar eclipse on the territory of North America. The natural phenomenon will be visible in Mexico, the United States and Canada.
The partially hidden solar disk will be visible over most of North America, northwest Europe, some islands of Oceania, and the north of the South American continent.
The solar eclipse will not be visible in Ukraine, but it can be watched during a live broadcast on the YouTube channel NASA. The BBC will also conduct the video broadcast.
The peak of the eclipse will begin at 21:17 Kyiv time (18:17 GMT). Its duration will be 4 minutes.
For scientists, the four minutes during which the moon’s shadow will cover the Sun will be an opportunity for various scientific experiments.
Researchers will launch rockets following the path of the shadow, observe animals in zoos, send radio signals around the world, and point cameras and telescopes into the sky using temporary darkness.
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“Incredible effect”
Erica Hamden, an astrophysicist from the University of Arizona, told the BBC what makes the current eclipse so special.
“It’s really cool,” explains the scientist. “If you’re very lucky and you’re in the right place, you’ll see the Moon completely cover the Sun.”
This, she says, will have an incredible effect that is truly unlike anything else.
“It will get very dark, all the animals will be quiet because they will think it is sunset.”
And the sun seems to set in all directions on the horizon, adds Hamden. Stars will be visible near it. It will also be possible to see the solar corona, which is the outer part of the Sun’s atmosphere.
“It will look as if the petals are coming off of it. It’s just an otherworldly phenomenon,” the scientist says enthusiastically.
All total solar eclipses are relatively rare events, she adds. In this decade, she says, there will be three or four of them.
Some of them pass across the ocean or through the pole, and no one sees them.
But the current one is quite unique, as it will pass through the whole of North America, through a very densely populated area.
image copyrightNASA
A total solar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth and Moon line up and the latter completely blocks sunlight.
Such an alignment occurs once every couple of years, when the Moon is exactly between the Earth and the Sun, but only in certain places on the Earth’s surface.
Covering the Sun, the Moon casts a shadow in the shape of a cone, the top of which can reach the Earth’s surface. In this case, the shadow cone will describe a certain curve on the surface of our planet, which is called a full phase band. In places that fall into this band, people will see a total eclipse.
The full phase of the eclipse will be able to be seen by those who will be in the zone of the so-called “path of totality” – a strip of the Earth’s surface where the Moon will completely cover the Sun’s disk.
This year, the “path of totality” will pass through the countries of North America: from Mexico through the state of Texas, the northern border of the state of New York and to the region of “New England” in the USA.
The next total solar eclipse will occur in August 2026. So if you miss it, you’ll have to go to Spain..
An attempt to look at the plasma
At the height of the eclipse, the sun’s corona will become visible – in fact, the atmosphere of our star, which scientists have been trying to study for centuries.
This mysterious part of the Sun consists of magnetized plasma and has a temperature of more than a million degrees Celsius.
image copyrightSR HABBAL AND M DRUCKMÜLLER
Photo Caption,
A total solar eclipse provides a rare opportunity to study the solar corona
Normally, because of the Sun’s enormous brightness, the corona is impossible to see, but on Monday, scientists from Dallas will be able to point instruments at it and take pictures.
Scientists from the University of Aberystwyth in Wales and the US space agency NASA hope to gain insight into the solar wind, the plasma ejected from the Sun’s surface.
Another mystery is why the corona seems much hotter than the surface of the Sun, although it is located on the periphery of the luminary.
They may even be able to capture the so-called coronal mass ejection, when huge clouds of plasma are ejected from the solar atmosphere into space. These emissions can interfere with the operation of artificial Earth satellites.
