MILLIONS RAISE THEIR GLASSES TO HEAVENLY ECLIPSE
THEY came by car, caravan, truck and bike: tens of millions of skygazing Americans seeking two minutes of daytime darkness in the country’s first coast-to-coast total eclipse for almost a century.
With parties in campsites, small towns, rooftops and beaches along the 4200km “path of totality” from Oregon in the west to South Carolina in the east, the US was briefly a nation of amateur astronomers as they peered skyward in protective glasses to watch the moon black out the sun.
The last coast-to-coast eclipse was in 1918, long before the advent of smartphones meant yesterday’s 91-minute solar show became the most photographed and documented event in human history.
With 200 million Americans living within a day’s drive of the 110km wide eclipse corridor, it was standing room only in towns that were blacked out.
A partial eclipse was visible across the US and streets were lined with people looking towards the sun throughout the afternoon, but millions were lured to the wide swathe of the country that experienced a complete, albeit brief, blackout.
While the last coast-tocoast eclipse was almost a century ago, the continental US experienced a total solar eclipse in 1979 that only impacted five Northwest states before heading to Canada. What made yesterday’s event so celebrated was that so much of the country was able to get a piece of the action.