WASHINGTON, D.C. — Scientists threw everything they had at the sky during the solar eclipse that swept across much of the United States on April 8, 2024. They deployed high-altitude aircraft, enlisted volunteers to launch weather balloons and snap bright halo-like images of the sun’s corona, and sent ham radio signals back and forth through the atmosphere.
The goal was to get closer to unraveling some of the enduring mysteries of the sun, including why the corona, the sun’s outer atmosphere, is so much hotter than the surface (SN: 5/1/24).
Preliminary results from this host of solar eclipse science experiments were presented December 10 at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting. While clouds obscured part of the eclipse path across the United States, teams were able to collect data that will fuel future inquiries. Here’s a closer look at how some of those projects peering into the shadow of the moon went.
Using the total solar eclipse to view the corona
A pair of NASA WB-57 aircraft set out to study the corona by flying within the moon’s shadow along the path of the total eclipse. The spacecraft carried two types of instruments: cameras to capture images of the corona, and spectrometers that measured different wavelengths of light and could trace different structures within the corona based on their temperatures.
While some images from the wing-mounted cameras came out blurry due to unexpected vibrations, the team was still able to capture detailed images of the corona. The spectrometers, mounted in the nose of the aircraft, were not affected.
Meanwhile, stationed along the path of totality from Texas to Maine, 35 observing teams captured images of the sun’s corona from the ground, as part of the Citizen CATE (Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse) project. The goal was to piece together a 60-minute movie that spans the evolution of the corona during that time, said Sarah Kovac, the project…
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