On April 8, around 3:15 p.m., Northeast Ohio will experience a total solar eclipse, where the moon will completely cover the sun and reveal the corona, the sun鈥檚 atmosphere.
According to the , this will be the first total eclipse in Ohio since 1806, and the next is predicted for 2099. You could say this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the area.
Alex Clevinger, doctoral student and teaching assistant in 麻豆影院鈥檚 Department of Physics, is most excited about the optical illusion that will occur during the total eclipse.
鈥淥ur eclipses are so rare, but they're actually because the moon and the sun appear to be about the same size in the sky,鈥 Clevinger said. 鈥淲hen you look up in the sky, the moon and the sun are about the same size which is pretty unusual. The Earth has a pretty big moon. The moon is about a fifth of the size of the Earth.鈥
To view the optical illusion of the eclipse, you must wear specific eyewear. According to , regular UV glasses cannot protect your eyes from the rays of the sun, and neither can camera, binocular, or telescope lenses.
Instead, wear 鈥渟afe solar viewers鈥 that comply with the , NASA insists.
During the total eclipse, expect some time of twilight as the moon covers the sun, but 麻豆影院 isn鈥檛 in the direct total coverage area, Clevinger said.
鈥淚 wouldn't say the middle of the night darkness, but maybe more than twilight, towards sunset,鈥 Clevinger said, 鈥淚t's not going to be completely dark because we're still going to be seeing the corona of the sun.鈥
Clevinger鈥檚 favorite part of eclipses is the history behind them. He mentioned both Ancient Greece and a Concorde Jet.
According to , in 1973, scientists boarded a jet and chased an eclipse in Africa as the moon鈥檚 shadow cast itself across the continent, giving them 74 minutes of totality.
In "Finding Our Place in the Cosmos: From Galileo to Sagan and Beyond" from the , there is the story of Aristarchus of Samos, a Greek astronomer who determined lunar eclipses were key to understanding and documenting Earth鈥檚 shape in the 3rd century, B.C.
Veronica Dexheimer, associate professor and director of Center for Nuclear Research in the Department of Physics noted these fun facts from NASA:
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