Everything You Need to Know About the Solar Eclipse
Unless you’ve been living on Mars – and can’t get Wifi there - you know that the heavens have scheduled a total solar eclipse for Monday.
There’s only one thing you really need to know – DON’T LOOK. Unless, of course, you’re wearing super protective lenses. Viewing glasses are hard to come by at this point, and swindlers are reportedly selling fakes, but a safe alternative is to DIY a pinhole viewer, following these instructions.
Nevertheless, the fourth estate has moved into a high gear. And, as longstanding members of the ink-stained brigade, we have sifted, sorted and curated the best information out there. Here goes:
Plenty of papers have the lowdown on the eclipse. The New York Times will even tell you how to stay sane.
NASA has maps galore, as well as live viewing of the swooping route the eclipse will travel: from Oregon on to South Carolina and points beyond. Even though the edge of totality (where the full eclipse is visible) moves at just over 1000 miles per hour, Wired explains how scientists can predict the timing of its arrival down to the second.
While a solar eclipse takes place nearly every year and a half somewhere around the world, the Atlantic says this is the first total solar eclipse visible in the continental United States in nearly 100 years. It’s a once in a lifetime event-- except for residents of Carbondale, Illinois, who will witness a second total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.
Preparations have been in the works for a while now. Far more than a bit of cloud cover, the solar eclipse will dramatically cut solar energy output for several hours. In North Carolina, Duke Energy has been figuring out how to make sure that 600,000 homes normally powered by solar still have energy.
As for the eclipse tourists, Atlas Obscura reports that hotel rooms near prime viewing spot Hopkinsville, Kentucky were booked up by tourists a year in advance. In Oregon, traffic was already getting bad last Wednesday as people started picking out their viewing spots along the highway. With a projected one million visitors arriving, Fox News says this could be the biggest traffic event in Oregon’s history.
And while a few extra days of car-camping to peep the eclipse might seem hardcore, it’s nothing compared to chasing it across the Sahara in a Concorde jet, like scientists did in 1973.
Going even further back, the History Channel looks at how ancient cultures explained eclipses. Undark shares the story of Maria Mitchell, a groundbreaking female scientist who brought a team from Vassar College to conduct astronomical studies during the July 29, 1878 eclipse-- and proved some of the old wisdom about women and science wrong.
Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown also does some debunking in a piece about what the eclipse really does not do: increase human trafficking.
Eclipse enthusiasts who won’t be in a position to watch it on Monday can still see it through the eyes of others. From Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to Bonnie Tyler’s 80’s anthem to Annie Dillard’s classic essay, there’s something for everyone.
Despite all that has been discovered, read and said about the eclipse, many still have questions. Is it a message from God? Is it even going to happen? We’ll know soon.
