Huge crowds gather for a total eclipse of the sun over N America
Millions of spectators along a narrow corridor stretching from Mexico through the US to Canada eagerly awaited Monday’s celestial sensation — a total eclipse of the sun — even as forecasters called for clouds.
It promised to be North America’s biggest eclipse crowd ever, thanks to the densely populated path and the lure of more than four minutes of midday darkness in Texas and other choice spots. Almost everyone in North America was guaranteed at least a partial eclipse, weather permitting.
“Cloud cover is one of the trickier things to forecast,” National Weather Service meteorologist Alexa Maines explained at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Science Center on Sunday. “At the very least, it won’t snow.”
The cliffhanging uncertainty added to the drama. Rain or shine, “it’s just about sharing the experience with other people,” said Chris Lomas from Gotham,
The moon will slip in front of the sun, blocking it. The resulting twilight would be long enough for birds and other animals to fall silent, and for planets and maybe even a comet to pop out
England, who was staying at a soldout trailer resort outside Dallas.
For Monday’s full eclipse, the moon will slip right in front of the sun, entirely blocking it. The resulting twilight, with only the sun’s outer atmosphere or corona visible, would be long enough for birds and other animals to fall silent, and for planets, stars, and maybe even a comet to pop out.
The outofsync darkness lasts up to 4 minutes, 28 seconds. That’s almost twice as long as it was during the U.S. coasttocoast eclipse seven years ago because the moon is closer to the earth. It will be another 21 years before the U.S. sees another total solar eclipse on this scale.
Extending five hours from the first bite out of the sun to the last, Monday’s eclipse begins in the Pacific and makes landfall at Mazatlan, Mexico, before moving into Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and 12 other U.S. states in the Midwest, Middle Atlantic, and New England, and then Canada.
It will take just 1 hour, 40 minutes for the moon’s shadow to race more than 6,500 km across the continent.
Eye protection is needed with proper eclipse glasses and filters to look at the Sun, except when it ducks completely out of sight during an eclipse.
The path of totality — approximately
185 km wide — encompasses several major cities this time, including Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, New York, and Montreal. An estimated 44 million people live within the track, with a couple hundred million more within
300 km.
Experts from NASA and scores of universities are posted along the route, poised to launch research rockets and weather balloons, and conduct experiments. The International Space Station’s seven astronauts will also be on the lookout, 435 km up.