Jakarta –
A total solar eclipse will occur on Monday, April 8 2024. At that moment, scientists will solve the mystery surrounding this eclipse.
The Total Solar Eclipse will be perfectly visible from the Pacific coast city of Mazatlán in Mexico to the east coast of Newfoundland in Canada. The Moon will appear to block the Sun perfectly.
This year’s eclipse phenomenon is predicted to last no more than four minutes. This duration is 2.5 minutes longer than the Total Solar Eclipse in 2017.
Apart from that, the eclipse path will be twice as wide, namely around 200 km. Likewise, the audience for this year’s phenomenon is estimated to reach 31 million people, double the number from the previous year.
The rare phenomenon of a Total Solar Eclipse has attracted many scientists and space agencies to make observations. Quoting the BBC, the following is a list of planned observations by scientists around the world during the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse:
Studying Animal Reactions During Eclipses
In 2017, Adam Hartstone-Rose of NC State University in North Carolina conducted experiments on how wildlife reacted to eclipses. He and his team discovered different behavior in several animals.
For example, gorillas gather inside when darkness falls and giraffes in Africa run fast.
“There are reports that wild giraffes in Africa started running fast during a total eclipse. I was very skeptical because giraffes are quite passive animals. Even though I was skeptical, some of them started running,” explained Hartstone.
What was even more surprising was a group of Galapagos tortoises. This animal, which is known to be passive, appears to be more active during the Total Solar Eclipse.
In addition to Hartstone, Trae Winter at the Advanced Research Lab in Vapor Inclusion and Accessibility (Arisa) in Massachusetts will also study animal behavior when this phenomenon occurs.
They will use a small device the size of a telephone, namely AudioMoths, to listen to the sounds of animals around them. Winter will invite volunteers to listen to how the animals react when darkness occurs.
“I can’t wait to hear many humans experience the eclipse for the first time and the sounds of excitement it will produce,” Winter said.
Monitoring Ionospheric Fluctuations
Another scientist, Aroh Barjatya at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, will monitor the atmospheric perturbation process via three rockets that will be launched. It is supported by NASA’s Wallops flight facility in Virginia.
One rocket will be launched 45 minutes before the peak of the eclipse, and another 45 minutes after. Barjatya will then look at the changes that occur during an eclipse.
The launched aircraft is also designed to measure charged particles as well as electric and magnetic fields in the ionosphere (a region of the Earth’s atmosphere that stretches from 100-1,000 km above the planet’s surface).
According to Barjatya, it is very likely that the density of the ionosphere when the Moon’s shadow passes will decrease. The more the rocket flies, Barjatya said the ionospheric measurements will be more precise.
“What the rocket helps to do is see resolutions below meters, sometimes below 1 cm. So you can see the smallest levels of fluctuation, which creates radio frequency interference,” he said.
Making a Total Solar Eclipse Film
This rare moment attracted the attention of Laura Peticolas from Sonoma State University in California to capture the moment of the eclipse on film. He created the Eclipse Megamovie project and asked the volunteers involved in it to put together hundreds of images.
For the 2017 eclipse, Peticolas had done so but found the results to be less than satisfactory. He hopes that this year he can collect better images of the eclipse.
Through this project, he is trying to reveal the characteristics of a Total Solar Eclipse. For example, how hot plasma bursts occur.
“This time we really hope to find the jet and the changing features,” he said.
Measuring Temperature-Weather Changes During an Eclipse
Observations of a Total Solar Eclipse on Earth can be influenced by environmental factors and so on. To maximize observations, NASA will carry out space flights with two WB-57 aircraft.
The plane will fly at an altitude of 15 km from the Earth’s surface. The experiment, led by Amir Caspi at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, will utilize an infrared camera.
NASA’s efforts will solve the mystery of the surface temperature of the Sun during an eclipse. If the rocket launched is not enough to answer the questions at hand, Caspi will invite 53 teams of students across the US to carry out the National Eclipse Balloon Project.
Through this project, students will fly as many as 600 balloons to the top. The balloon will be used to see the weather reaction when changes in the eclipse occur.
Watch the video “The total solar eclipse phenomenon will occur this April”
(cyu/nwk)
2024-04-03 06:30:00
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