NASA to bring scientists, specialists to Spa City for eclipse
Hot Springs will host a dozen scientists and outreach specialists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the days leading up to the April 8 total eclipse, and the group will be giving several free talks about the celestial event.
Cris White, the eclipse coordinator with NASA’s Earth to Sky program based out of Goddard Space Flight Center, said the program was looking for a national park to visit for the eclipse.
“The National Park Service is one of our major partners, also U.S. Fish and Wildlife, but being a National Park Service-centered partner, we were looking for a national park that wanted us to be there,” she said. “We had a few reach out, and Hot Springs was one of them. And they seemed to really kind of understand how big the undertaking would be.”
There is a varied group of scientists coming as part of the group — from those who work with space weather and auroras to laser communications and heliophysics.
“We have a scientist that works in geology and hydrology, which will be great for Hot Springs, since the thermal waters are there,” she said.
“We have people who are focused on laser communications between Earth and the moon and some of the spacecraft out in space, so it’s quite a varied group,” White said.
“Then we have a lot of astronomy outreach specialists, who are really well-trained on how to do hands-on activities with families and things like that. It’s a varied group, but I think that brings a lot of interest for different things and things that most people don’t even think that NASA even is a part of, which is the exciting part for me.”
While the complete schedule of events has not been finalized, there will be events at area schools as well as at the special Bridge Street LIVE event on April 4. Three presentations are scheduled to be held at the Bridge Street Entertainment District at 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., Visit Hot Springs announced last month.
“I think we’re going to try to do it in a way that it reaches the most people,” White
said, noting the scientists will tailor their presentations to each group they visit.
“So there’ll be a little bit of stuff that the younger crowd can understand and a little bit of stuff that’s more for adults, mixed into all those talks.
“There’s some (events) that we’re doing at schools, and those will obviously be age-appropriate to the stage of students that we’ll be talking with. And then there are some that are just specifically adult venues, and we’ll just put it at the appropriate level for that. So we do understand the age ranges of the people that will be at each site, so we’re kind of adjusting for that,” she said.
On April 8, the group will be set up on Arlington Lawn at the north end of Bathhouse Row with a variety of tools for observing the eclipse, White said.
“We’ll be using what are called sun spotters,” she said. “It projects an image onto a piece of paper of the actual eclipse as it’s happening, and several people can gather around those at a time. We find that they’re way more useful (than telescopes) with big crowds. It’s a really fun way to engage with the eclipse in a way that you can do anytime with the sun.”
There will also be accessibility tools including canopies with solar filters for those in wheelchairs to view the eclipse without the need for eclipse glasses and LightSound, a device designed by Harvard University in 2017 to allow those with visual impairments to experience a solar eclipse.
“It has a microchip that senses light,” White said of LightSound. “As the light changes, it puts out a pitch, a sound, and that pitch changes as the light changes. And it’s pretty significant. We used it for the annular eclipse, and it was a pretty quick drop in tone and then a rise in tone. And we set it up like 30 minutes beforehand, and the kids were playing with it, running in front of it, blocking the sunlight, kind of seeing how the pitch changed.
“It brought a lot of interest to why we had that there, and then when they found out it was so that people with visual impairments can hear the eclipse, they were pretty excited about that. And everybody was super respectful at that time to not block it, so that it could be used properly.”
While the group is most looking forward to getting to experience the total solar eclipse, White said they enjoy talking about science.
“They love communicating science,” she said. “They love the work that they do and talking about all the different aspects of what we all do within the realm of NASA. It’s pretty exciting. It’s neat to be able to actually get out in and among people and talk about that, instead of just in a room full of scientists or a roomful of outreach specialists. You get out and you get to actually talk to people directly, which is wonderful. It’s something we all thrive on.”