So as
the moon orbits the earth, sometimes it passes between the earth
and the sun and when it does that, we get eclipses.
Right now we're having an annular eclipse, which means it's coming between us
on the earth and the sun, but it's not totally blocking out the main
disk of the sun.
And that means that as the moon passes in front of the sun, we'll see the sun
peaking around the outside in this ring of fire.
in an annular eclipse.
The moon doesn't totally block out the main disk of the sun.
And so you still see the sun peeking around.
It gives us that ring of fire effect.
And so it's never safe to look directly at any phase of the annular eclipse.
But during a total solar eclipse, the moon fully
blocks out that bright main disk of the sun.
And then we get to see the much fainter corona around it,
the atmosphere of the sun.
And that's part of the solar eclipse totality.
When the main disk of the sun is totally blocked,
is safe to view with your naked eye.
The annular eclipse is totally safe.
We never look directly at the sun,
but there are safe ways to view the annular eclipse.
If you have solar approved glasses, you can wear those.
You can also view the annular eclipse indirectly
through a pinhole camera.
On April 8th of 2024, It's going to be a total solar eclipse
that comes across the United States, up through Texas, up and out through Maine.
A total solar eclipse happens when the moon comes between the earth
and the sun.
And it totally blocks the main disk of the sun.
And then we get to see the atmosphere of the sun called the the solar corona.
That's the part of the sun that I study.
And so I am so excited to actually get to see it from here on Earth.
I am so excited
for the total solar eclipse where we get to see the sun's corona,
the atmosphere of the sun, because the moon blocks the main body of the sun.
The corona is the part of the sun that I study
and I'm so excited to actually get to see it with my own eyes.
NASA makes artificial eclipses all the time with its spacecraft
so that we can observe the corona
all the time and not have to wait for the moon to come between us and the earth.
But of course it's just different getting to actually stand on earth
and actually witness it with your own eye.
We are so excited about the heliophysics big year.
This is a big year
kicking off with the annular eclipse going through the total solar eclipse
and all the way until Parker Solar probe one of our NASA's missions
until Parker Solar probes closest approach to the sun.
During this time we have many citizen scientist projects that people all over
the world can get involved with to study the sun, to help study the aurora.
So many projects for anybody in the community to get involved with.
during eclipses
We have a unique opportunity
to study the connectivity between the sun and the Earth.
How the sun really influences the Earth.
One way is as the moon
blocks the sunlight from the sun onto the earth,
we can watch how that impacts the Earth's atmosphere
and the special layer of the Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere.
This is a special conducting layer of the atmosphere, and it impacts
our radio waves so we can watch how that little patch of reduced sunlight,
how that how the ionosphere responds to that.
if you're outside
the path of totality or outside the main path of annularity.
You can still see a partial eclipse.
So a partial eclipse happens when the moon passes
between where you're standing on the earth and the sun.
But it doesn't totally block out or come between us and the sun.
And then the safe way to watch that is indirectly
with a pinhole projector or with special solar viewing approved glasses,
So the sun goes
through an 11 year cycle where the magnetic field concentrations
on the sun and the explosions from those magnetic field concentrations
increase in frequency and then decrease in frequency.
So right now we're headed to solar maximum where the number of explosions
is increasing in frequency.
We call that solar maximum.
We're safe here on the earth.
But of course
our satellites can experience adverse effects from these solar storms.
And one of the beautiful things we get to see here on earth are
the aurora borealis.