On April 8, 2024, a 115-mile-wide strip of North America will be plunged into darkness. The disk of the moon will slip in front of the sun, obscuring its face and creating a rosy, fluffy crown of flame visible from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Newfoundland, Canada. It will be the last spectacle of its kind for a generation—the next total solar eclipse viewable from across North America will be on August 23, 2044.
Spectators aren’t the only ones excited. A solar eclipse is one of the best ways for scientists to study the solar corona, that ring of fire that stands out when the moon blocks our bright star. This feature remains one of the most mysterious parts of the sun. Astronomers originally thought the corona was a feature of the moon—perhaps sunlight reflecting off the lunar atmosphere. But the moon has no atmosphere. It was not until 1806 that Spanish astronomer José Joaquín de Ferrer recognized it was a feature of the sun instead, giving it the name corona, the Spanish word for “crown.”
We now know that the corona is the sun’s shockingly hot outer atmosphere. This atmosphere releases a mysterious “wind” of particles and occasionally unleashes clumps of itself in roiling packages of energy called coronal mass ejections. What we don’t know, however, is how or why those things happen.
On supporting science journalism
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
On April 8, astronomers will train their telescopes on the corona in hopes of demystifying these phenomena. They’ll be aided by two new spacecraft that have recently arrived at the sun, gathering data from near and even within the corona. These probes, plus the insights scientists expect to gain from the eclipse, should make this year the most exciting…
Read the full article here
