TIP SHEET: CU Boulder sources, events on Aug. 21 total eclipse
Several CU Boulder scientists are available to discuss the total solar eclipse set to take place Aug. 21. The eclipse will be the first to cross the United States from coast to coast in about 100 years.
The science behind eclipses
Astronomer Douglas Duncan, director of Fiske Planetarium, has traveled the world chasing eclipses for more than four decades. Duncan, who will be observing the August total eclipse from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, can talk about how eclipses occur, how to watch them safely, and the rarity of the upcoming eclipse. Duncan can be reached at dduncan@colorado.edu.
Research Associate Dan Seaton of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences is working with Southwest Research Institute scientists in Boulder to chase the eclipse with two NASA WB 57F research jets. With twin telescopes mounted on the nose of each jet, the effort is expected to provide the best ever high-frequency images of the solar corona to better understand why it is so much hotter than the sun’s surface. The team will chase the eclipse from 50,000 feet over Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee, taking high-definition visible and infrared images. Seaton, who will be in Salem, Oregon, making ground observations to complement the jet observations, can be reached at daniel.seaton@noaa.gov.
Assistant Professor Robert Marshall of Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences and the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research is leading a NASA-funded study to investigate the effects of the eclipse on the Earth's ionosphere, the region of the atmosphere from 35 to 250 miles in altitude that is charged by solar radiation. Marshall's team will use high-power, low-frequency radio signals that reflect from the D-region of the ionosphere some 35 to 55 miles high. Marshall can be reached at robert.marshall@colorado.edu.
Senior Research Associate Tom Woods, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, is the chief scientist on a $28 million instrument designed and built at CU Boulder called the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) that is riding on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The orbiting observatory measures solar variability and how it can impact Earth. In 2016 SDO captured a rare double eclipse in which the moon and Earth were crossing in front of the sun. Woods can be reached at tom.woods@lasp.colorado.edu.
Total eclipses in Mesoamerican history
Professor Emeritus J. McKim “Kim” Malville of astrophysical and planetary sciences has been observing eclipses for decades, starting with a total eclipse in French Polynesia in 1964. He also is an expert in prehistoric astronomy in the Southwest and South America and has studied a petroglyph in northern New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon that may represent a total solar eclipse in 1097, a time when the sun was very active and emitting violent coronal mass ejections. He can be reached at kim.malville@colorado.edu.
Professor Emeritus Payson Sheets of anthropology, a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican expert, can talk about ancient Mayan astronomers, including their ability to predict a solar eclipse nearly 1,000 years into the future. The prediction was obtained after scientists from Tulane University decoded Mayan hieroglyphics and determined astronomers from the 11th or 12th century predicted a 1991 solar eclipse to within a day. Sheets can be reached at payson.sheets@colorado.edu.
Students and the eclipse
The Colorado Space Grant Consortium (COSGC), a NASA-funded program headquartered at CU Boulder to give state students experience in building and flying space instruments, is part of NASA’s Eclipse Ballooning Project to launch high-altitude scientific balloons along the path of solar eclipse totality across the country. COSGC is flying a tracking system and two imaging systems with a goal of streaming live video of the eclipse. With a team of nearly 200 students and faculty from several Colorado colleges, COSGC will be launching two balloons near Guernsey, Wyoming. For more information contact COSGC Associate Director Bernadette Garcia at bgarcia@colorado.edu.
Thousands of pairs of eclipse glasses were distributed to Denver-area K-12 schools through a team led by School of Education Professor Valerie Otero via funding from the National Science Foundation, the Noyce Streamline to Mastery grant, Google and a gift from Professor Emeritus Richard McCray.
CU Boulder eclipse events
CU Boulder’s University Memorial Center (UMC) is hosting a public viewing of the Aug. 21 eclipse. The viewing will be held on the UMC’s fifth-floor outdoor terrace from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The UMC is located at 1669 Euclid Ave.
The Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences will lead a small team using several solar telescopes to observe the eclipse on the lawn outside of Fiske Planetarium, which will be closed on Aug. 21. There is very limited space for the public, but media are welcome to attend.
More CU Boulder information on the upcoming eclipse, including videos, is available at the Fiske website.
For further assistance contact Jim Scott in CU Boulder media relations at 303-492-3114 or jim.scott@colorado.edu.