During the total solar eclipse on April 8, when the moon temporarily obscures the sun’s face for millions of people in Mexico, the United States, and Canada, several tests will be carried out to better comprehend some of the most pressing unresolved questions concerning the golden orb. NASA will launch sounding rockets and WB-57 high-altitude planes to perform a study on characteristics of the sun and Earth that are only visible during an eclipse. The efforts are part of a long tradition of collecting useful data and observations when the moon temporarily blocks the sun’s light.
Experiments conducted during the 1919 total solar eclipse offered support for Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity
One of the most famous scientific breakthroughs associated with an eclipse happened on May 29, 1919, when a total solar eclipse offered support for Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which the scientist first formally outlined in 1916, according to NASA.
Einstein proposed that gravity is caused by the warping of time and space, which distorts the very fabric of the cosmos. For example, Einstein suggested that the gravitational attraction of a massive object, such as the sun, may deflect light emitted by another object, such as a star, making the object appear farther away from Earth’s perspective. During the 1919 eclipse, a science expedition led by English astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington to view stars in Brazil and West Africa discovered that some stars appeared to be in the incorrect location, confirming Einstein’s theory.
The discovery is just one of several scientific lessons learned during eclipses.
NASA and other space organizations observed the 2017 eclipse over the United States with 11 distinct spacecraft and two high-altitude planes.
Data gathered during the eclipse assisted scientists in properly predicting what the corona, or the sun’s heated outermost atmosphere, would look like during eclipses in 2019 and 2021. Despite its high temperatures, the corona seems fainter than the sun’s shining surface; nevertheless, it appears as a halo around the sun during an eclipse, when the majority of the sun’s light is hidden by the moon, making it easier to examine.
Three sounding rockets will launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia before, during, and after the eclipse
While quieter during previous eclipses, the sun is reaching its highest activity, known as the solar maximum, this year, providing astronomers with a unique chance. During the eclipse on April 8, scientists and teams of researchers may make new findings that expand our understanding of our part of the cosmos. Observing the sun during eclipses also helps scientists understand how solar material flows from the sun. Space weather is created by charged particles known as plasma, which interact with the ionosphere, the upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. The region serves as the barrier between Earth’s lower atmosphere and space.
The sun’s energetic solar activity during solar maximum may interfere with the International Space Station and communication equipment. Many low-Earth orbit satellites and radio waves operate in the ionosphere, therefore, dynamic space weather affects GPS and long-distance radio communications.
During the eclipse, high-altitude balloons will be used in experiments to explore the ionosphere, as will a citizen science project involving amateur radio operators. Operators in various areas will measure the strength of their transmissions as well as the distance traveled during the eclipse to determine how changes in the ionosphere affect the broadcasts. Researchers also carried out this experiment during the October 2023 annular eclipse, when the moon did not entirely block the sun’s light, and the results are currently being examined.
In another repeat experiment, three sounding rockets will launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia before, during, and after the eclipse to assess how the sudden absence of sunlight affects Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Aroh Barjatya, an engineering physics professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, is in charge of the atmospheric perturbations surrounding the Eclipse Path experiment, which was initially conducted during the annular solar eclipse in October.
Each rocket will launch four soda bottle-sized scientific instruments into the path of totality to monitor changes in the ionosphere’s temperature, particle density, and electric and magnetic fields from 55 to 310 miles (90 to 500 kilometers) above land.
